tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787Mon, 27 Nov 2017 12:44:15 +0000parentingfeminismmediaraceeducationhealthpoliticsracismteachingbody imagerhetoricsexismsocial mediabookslinksgenderpop culturelife lessonsmusicBlogging to My PhDtelevisionworkfitnessbalancingbloggingequalitygender binaryidentitymotherhoodmoviesbreastfeedingcommunity collegefoodwritingadvertisingequally shared parentinggraduate schoolmoneyethical consumptionmarriagedevelopmental educationpregnancyhousekeepingrapecrimeprivilegeweightagonismbiracialtechnologymarketingpicturessexholidaysindividualism/collectivismbirth plansbody policingfat-shaminginterracial marriagenewsclothestoysacademiacommercialsphilosophysportsactivismcollegefatherhoodgay rightsnatural childbirthRelationshipschoresclassreligionsocietybirth controlviolenceamerican dreambeautylabelingrape cultureroller derbyshoppingIdentity in Balancegunsreadingsocial justicecommunityfamilygrammarlanguagemental healthDisneyartchildren's mediadiversityethicsguest postgymoppressionpetspregnancy symptomsreviewurban livingvideosabortionattachment parentingbalancecleaningfree speechsafetysciencetravelvisual rhetoricabuseathleticsbroken anklecelebritychildhoodcomedydietfriendshiplabor and deliveryobesitypostmodernitypovertyprincessessongstime managementHalloweenchild carecookingfemale bodygamesgun controlhappinesshospitalshumorlawlovemeditationnew mediapowerpreschoolself caresleepNaBloPoMobaby foodchoicesdebateshousingmagazinesmaternity leaveminimalismn-wordorifplanningprisonsprivacyrunningsexual assaultst. louisteaching philosophythird wavetruthvacationwealthweddingweight gainweightliftingBeyonceBuffyFergusonGame of ThronesThe Walking DeadTrumpableismaffirmative actionanxietyaudiencebirthbirth storycarscatcallingcivil rightsconsentcorporationscreativitycutedaycaredialectsdissertationdivision of labordomesticitydrugsecho chambersfaithfootballfree-range parentingfungiftednessgilmore girlshairhomeschoolingmasculinitymeal planingmedical communitymedicinemindfulnessmom warsnewbornpoetrypornrobotssex positivityshameslut shamingstereotypestresssuppliestoddlerstwice exceptionalityvotingAshton KutcherBarbieFacebookJoe PaternoLil WayneMilkBiteNFLPETAParks and RecQuentin TarantinoRihannaSPDThe DressWordless Wednesdayacademic freedomadhdadulthoodalcoholalt/disappropriationbaby gearbed-sharingbeliefblog hopblogiversaryboard gamesbullyingcapitalismcensorshipcomplicationsconferencescraftsdatingdemocracydocdoubteconomyelectionsepistemologyexerciseformulafunnygestaltgiftsgirlsgrithaeshistoryhumanityhuntinginjuryintellectualismintersectionalityjewelrylesson planslotteriesmayoral racemilitarymiscarriagemodernismmoralitymusic videosnamesnurseryoutdoorsoutrageoutsourcingpaleoparodypatiencepatriarchypink collarplagiarismpodcastspuzzlesrecipesresearchroutinesafe spacesscholarshipsexual orientationslaveryspacesprezzaturasterotypestigmatantrumsteenagerstwittervaginaveganvegetarianvictim blamingwelfareBalancing JanePhD student. Educator. Mother. Wife. Feminist. This blog aims to shine light on how these roles (and others) intertwine.http://www.balancingjane.com/noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)Blogger834125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-948114100792359557Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:23:00 +00002017-11-19T18:23:09.645-06:00feminismpoliticsraperape culturesexual assaultWhy I Hope Al Franken Resigns Kate Harding has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/17/im-a-feminist-i-study-rape-culture-and-i-dont-want-al-franken-to-resign/?utm_term=.662848e35da5" target="_blank">an opinion piece up</a> for the Washington Post explaining why she doesn't think Al Franken should resign amid allegations that he sexually assaulted Leeann Tweeden. She says plenty of smart things, and she is positioning herself as a voice of pragmatic reason in a sea of knee-jerk reactionaries with short-term thinking:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #111111;">When you combine these things — an awareness that the Democratic Party is no more or less than best of two, and an understanding that men in power frequently exploit women — it becomes difficult to believe that Franken is the&nbsp;</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;">only</span><span style="color: #111111;">&nbsp;sitting Democrat with a history of harassment, abuse or assault. The recent #metoo campaign demonstrated how normalized unwanted kissing and groping are in our culture. Donald Trump was caught on tape crudely admitting to both of those transgressions, and we made him our president. According to the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 1 in 3 women experiences some sort of contact sexual violence in her life. Sexual harassment and assault are simply too widespread for Democrats to respond to Franken’s offense with only Franken in mind: We need to respond in a way that helps us develop a protocol for meaningful change.</span></span></i></blockquote>She's making a very similar argument to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-missed-a-chance-to-draw-a-line-in-the-sand-on-sexual-misconduct/" target="_blank">the one that Nate Silver makes</a> to explain why he thinks Democrats are punting on what could be a politically safe move for them:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Of course, what might be politically expedient for Democrats isn’t necessarily expedient for Schumer — or for McConnell, or for the White House, all of whom may be acting out of a sense of institutional self-preservation. If there’s a precedent that sexual harassment is grounds for removal or resignation from office, then a lot of members of Congress — including some of Schumer’s colleagues and friends — could have to resign once more allegations come to light, as they almost certainly will. President Trump’s conduct could also come under renewed scrutiny, as could the conduct of former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Politics is a male-dominated institution, and a conservative&nbsp;institution, and conservative, male-dominated institutions have pretty much no interest in flipping over the sexual harassment rock and seeing what comes crawling out from underneath it.</i></blockquote>Both of these writers are making the same basic claim that Franken's response will be precedent-setting, and that politicians might need to be careful in setting the precedent that former sexual misconduct should lead to present resignation. The whole system, it seems, could come crashing down.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CaRQlYryJ5U/WhIVgi87XMI/AAAAAAAAEwM/mCq3sBCf1ZcUg_mtK3l38Yfzew5r9Uv1gCLcBGAs/s1600/photo-1489850846882-35ef10a4b480.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CaRQlYryJ5U/WhIVgi87XMI/AAAAAAAAEwM/mCq3sBCf1ZcUg_mtK3l38Yfzew5r9Uv1gCLcBGAs/s400/photo-1489850846882-35ef10a4b480.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let. It. Crash.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm serious. Donald Trump is president of the United States. This is a man who is grossly unqualified to play the mayor in a school performance, let alone lead our country. He ran on a ticket of, basically, promising to blow shit up, and a lot of people across the country said, "We're with you on that." Obviously, the discontent is running deep already.</div><br />If our system is so fragile that it can't handle having an actual process of accountability and value-based standards for its participants, then it needs to crash because--and this is important--<i>it isn't working anyway!</i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have been involved in approximately 11,000 debates about Al Franken since the story broke, and the vast majority of my liberal friends seem to be taking this wishy-washy "pragmatic" view that wants to preserve the party's effectiveness rather than hold a member of it accountable.</div><br />The bottom line for me is this: either we meant what we said or we didn't.<br /><br />Here, I'll <a href="https://www.facebook.com/senatoralfranken/posts/1517209188364958" target="_blank">let Al Franken explain it</a>:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div><iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="627" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsenatoralfranken%2Fposts%2F1517209188364958&amp;width=500" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="500"></iframe><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">At the end of his Facebook post, he quotes from the Gretchen Carlson piece and says this:&nbsp;</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>[Gretchen writes,] 'I encourage victims to stand up and tell their stories, which I know requires immense bravery. And I’m hopeful that we’ll see changes in our laws and our culture that will allow them to do so without being victimized yet again.' I couldn’t agree more."</i></blockquote></div>He <i>encourages women to stand up and tell their stories</i>. If they do so, even though it "requires immense bravery" we will see <i>changes in our laws and our culture</i>. <i>CHANGES IN OUR LAWS AND OUR CULTURE! </i>It doesn't get to return to normal. It doesn't get to be business as usual. The system doesn't get to continue running merrily along its patriarchal, violence-laden track. We (including Franken himself) collectively asked for women to come forward. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/the-movement-of-metoo/542979/" target="_blank">And they did</a>, and they keep coming, and they're going to keep coming.<br /><br />I am not on a "witch hunt." I do completely recognize the difference between the accusations against Franken and those against, say, Roy Moore. They differ in severity, number of victims/repetition, and age of victim. All of those things matter. It matters, too, that Franken's victim says she accepts his apology and isn't trying to force him out of office. It all matters.<br /><br />But none of it changes the fact that Franken needs to hold himself up to the standard he set. (I am also not interested in arguments that he wasn't really touching her, it was trick photography, it was a thick coat, the military escort says it didn't happen, blah, blah, blah. Both Franken and Tweeden say it happened. The man doing the action and the woman having the action done to her both say it was wrong. We don't need to play mental gymnastics on this one).<br /><br />I think that this piece from The Establishment titled "<a href="https://theestablishment.co/so-youve-sexually-harassed-or-abused-someone-what-now-ed49a934bab1" target="_blank">So You've Sexually Harassed or Abused Someone: What Now?</a>" does an excellent job of laying out what the next steps should be. It lays out steps for accepting responsibility, avoiding re-victimizing victims, and moving forward in a way that transforms the cultural landscape for the future.<br /><br />Here's the thing, I <i>like</i>&nbsp;Al Franken. I support his work in the Senate. I think he means it when he says he's an ally who wants this world to change. But now I need him to walk the walk and demonstrate what taking responsibility for those past actions means. Are there other ways to do that besides resigning? Perhaps. Are there other ways to do that besides resigning that don't become a huge distraction and road block for the momentum building against actually changing the culture surrounding sexual assault? I don't think so.<br /><br />The chorus of "it's not as bad" that people are using to defend Franken in comparison to Moore, Weinstein, Louis C.K., etc. runs the risk of morphing. "It's not as bad" can easily become "it's not that bad," and that's a risk we cannot take at this moment. That's a risk we cannot afford at this potential tipping point.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YekGl3SGRDA/WhIb8EJrilI/AAAAAAAAEwc/ATNq-d408S47qMsMsgSp1ZrMAIqaZ-CJACLcBGAs/s1600/photo-1477003580086-917054ea8418.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="1506" height="212" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YekGl3SGRDA/WhIb8EJrilI/AAAAAAAAEwc/ATNq-d408S47qMsMsgSp1ZrMAIqaZ-CJACLcBGAs/s320/photo-1477003580086-917054ea8418.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There are lots and lots and lots of people out there right now desperate to hear "it's not that bad." They are coming to terms with the fact that all of those #MeToo posts mean that some of the behavior they passed off as "just a joke" or "boys being boys" or "I got a little tipsy" was actually incredibly damaging and weighed on the women in their lives. They feel guilty, confused, and frustrated. They don't want to be labeled as sexual harassers, assailants, or sometimes even rapists. The fact is that if <a href="https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence" target="_blank">1 in every 6 women reports having been raped</a>, there are a lot of rapists out there. There are even more sexual harassers. And many of them have never thought of themselves in those terms. Many of them have never considered that the acts they took could have long-lasting damage. But now that they see people they love and respect coming forward to say how harmed they've been, they're pausing, reflecting, and recognizing.<br /><br /><i>This is important. This is necessary. This is the step we have been missing!&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Al Franken demonstrating true remorse while simultaneously displaying the seriousness of committing to doing better is the symbolic response we need right now. That isn't short-term thinking. It's long-term thinking. It's hoping for a better future where we no longer accept sexual harassment and assault as the natural side effects of being human. If Franken really wants to be an ally, the easiest way to do it is to resign.<br /><br />I hope he will do the right thing.&nbsp;</div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/11/why-i-hope-al-franken-resigns.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-2180358495804246422Tue, 31 Oct 2017 01:10:00 +00002017-10-30T20:10:08.203-05:00developmental educationrhetoricteachingteaching philosophyAcceleration to Nowhere? Only If That Was Always the DestinationThere's an article over at Inside Higher Ed called "<a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/10/30/why-colleges-shouldnt-abandon-remedial-education-essay?utm_content=buffer40153&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=facebook&amp;utm_campaign=IHEbuffer" target="_blank">The Fast Lane to Nowhere</a>" and it decries developmental education acceleration because <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white;">we have already promoted so many students at all levels who don’t know the material that we are drowning in a sea of bogus diplomas and degrees -- and far worse, the holders of those dishonorable documents are floundering."</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Author John Almy makes many claims that I can't argue against. He says that "[w]e cannot continue to pass students and then hand them high school diplomas that they cannot read."</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Agreed.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">He says, "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are hurting students by not teaching them the material before we pass them, and that process begins in kindergarten and continues through college."<br /><br />Absolutely.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But he makes a logical jump from those valid points to an angry tirade against acceleration without connecting the dots.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-THRrol0Le4I/WffNRNrYZlI/AAAAAAAAEv4/IdOcHVyWXo4LGOFZSWfS1kvbJQ-qxMzHACLcBGAs/s1600/photo-1506328177866-9e307a27fbca.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-THRrol0Le4I/WffNRNrYZlI/AAAAAAAAEv4/IdOcHVyWXo4LGOFZSWfS1kvbJQ-qxMzHACLcBGAs/s320/photo-1506328177866-9e307a27fbca.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Let's all jump to conclusions!</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />In part, Almy writes, "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We put remedial students who are incapable of surviving remedial classes into transfer-level classes alongside students who are supposedly prepared, and that, along with a little extra tutoring, will somehow provide the lower-level students with the desire and abilities to quickly acquire all the skills they have failed to gain in the first 12 years of their educations. Baloney!"</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Except it isn't "baloney." We <a href="https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/ccbc-alp-student-outcomes-follow-up.html" target="_blank">have</a> the <a href="http://accelerationproject.org/Publications/ctl/ArticleView/mid/654/articleId/36/categoryId/3/Accelerated-English-at-Chabot-College-A-Synthesis-of-Key-Findings" target="_blank">data</a> to back it up. Acceleration (often by shortening the developmental course sequence) and co-requisite enrollment (where developmental students are placed in credit-bearing courses at the same time they take their "remedial" class) are sweeping the nation and making plenty of people nervous because we're disrupting the traditional gatekeeping mechanism of blocking student access to "real" college.<br /><br />I take a lot of issue with Almy's claims. First of all, he himself admits that these students "failed to gain [the necessary skills] in the first 12 years of their educations." So one more semester is the magic bullet? They had 144 months to learn these things, but four more should do it?<br /><br />This is especially troubling when so many "remedial" classes follow curricular models that look a lot more like high school, or middle school, or even elementary school than they do college. Students doing endless grammar drills or being forced to write a perfect sentence before they are given the freedom to express their ideas in robust and complete essays is a surefire way to kill any interest in the subject. Turn writing into an exercise in proving one's academic identity rather than a way to express one's ideas, and you're going to send a whole lot of first-generation, low-income, and minority students running for the door feeling like they don't belong.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>That's</i>&nbsp;what we lose when we disrupt the traditional model of developmental education. We lose the chance to protect our precious definitions of what college writers should sound like (and by extension, often what they should look like, dress like, and spend money like).<br /><br />This isn't to say that we should embrace all efforts at developmental education reform without question. Accelerated models deserve scrutiny, and they are not all created equal. <a href="http://communitycollegedata.com/articles/the-corequisite-reform-movement/" target="_blank">This article</a>&nbsp;from Alexandros Goudas points out that some attempts to create a co-requisite ostensibly modeled off of the very successful ALP model from Baltimore Community College have actually become nothing more than a cost-saving measure that slaps a one-credit-hour lab component to traditional credit-bearing English 101 with no curriculum support that actually follows the model.<br /><br />I personally think that many conversations surrounding developmental writing reform have focused too much on the structure and not enough on the curriculum. Acceleration works only when both components are taken into account. Students don't magically learn the same material at a faster rate just because you deliver it quicker (though many students who are capable of doing the work but who have life issues that prevent them from successfully completing multiple semesters of developmental coursework might still benefit). The true benefit comes from a curricular model that puts belief in students' abilities to succeed at the forefront of course design. If we get rid of the grammar drills and insultingly low hurdles and instead place high standards and the means to reach them in our students' paths, we see success. It is really that simple . . . and that hard.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4i-ek3j6Mro/WffM5X53JdI/AAAAAAAAEv0/usq3-K2OGiEsQGVvkD5mG3qWcc6g8nrqwCLcBGAs/s1600/photo-1470104240373-bc1812eddc9f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4i-ek3j6Mro/WffM5X53JdI/AAAAAAAAEv0/usq3-K2OGiEsQGVvkD5mG3qWcc6g8nrqwCLcBGAs/s320/photo-1470104240373-bc1812eddc9f.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The challenging part of developmental education reform is that it means not just reforming our classrooms and our curriculum, but reforming ourselves. We have fallen into tired stereotypes about developmental writers for decades, and Almy is going through them like a greatest hits record. His claim that students haven't learned any skills in twelve years of school is a ridiculous one. I have <i>never </i>had a student come into my developmental writing classroom without a rich rhetorical skillset. I have <i>never </i>had a student come into my classroom without complex experiences of rhetorical dexterity. They are not blank slates arriving to us to learn kindergarten-level sentence structure. Just because they do not write the way we want them to write doesn't mean they can't write.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been teaching remedial writing classes for a decade, and I have had hundreds of students enter my classroom. Nothing in my experience matches Almy's description of developmental students as "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">those who don’t want to or can’t learn" and who are "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">draining our valuable resources." I can count on one hand the number of students I have met who seem truly incapable of meeting the demands of a rigorous, complex writing curriculum.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Furthermore, Almy pleas for us to <span style="font-family: inherit;">"[t]</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">each those of us who have the desire -- really teach us -- what our instructors neglected to teach us the first time. And above all, make us learn or leave. Make us accountable. Make us earn our way."&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>That is exactly what I do</i>! The fact that I do it in an accelerated format doesn't make it any less rigorous. In fact, my accelerated classroom is leaps and bounds <i>more challenging </i>than the remedial course profile I was teaching from before our redesign. My students are absolutely, 100% held accountable. They do "learn or leave," though I try very hard to make them learn rather than leave. I don't understand why Almy thinks that an accelerated model is somehow a guaranteed A. It isn't.<br /><br />It is ridiculous when he goes on to suggest that acceleration is somehow at odds with the goal of high standards and accountability, that I am somehow not letting students <span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">feel pride in what [they] have accomplished" and am instead bestowing upon them "arrogance in how [they] circumvented the system."<br /><br />The only "system" they are "circumventing" is one designed to make them take classes with no college credit while they eat through their financial aid allotment, dragging out their "two-year" degree for years and years while we continue to steep them in current traditional rhetoric practices that didn't work in the first place and then pat our backs about our "rigor" when they give up.<br /><br />Then he calls upon remedial education and its lengthy sequence as a way to build grit. <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/02/what-do-we-mean-when-we-praise-grit-and.html" target="_blank">And we all know how I feel about that.&nbsp;</a><br /><br />It's a bad system, one rooted in systemic discrimination against minorities and anyone whose discourse identities don't align with our own sense of superiority. If it makes us uncomfortable to dismantle it (or, really, just disrupt it a little), then that says much more about us than it does about the students who have become collateral damage in a historical battle over our attempts to shore up our academic boundaries.&nbsp;</span></span>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/10/acceleration-to-nowhere-only-if-that.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-8799791938664851839Thu, 26 Oct 2017 08:14:00 +00002017-10-26T03:14:24.138-05:00homeschoolingparentingrobotstechnologyArcher in a Blindfold (A Look at Modern Parenting)"You have an auto car!" my daughter said excitedly from the back seat.<br /><br />"Huh?" I wasn't sure what she was talking about.<br /><br />"I saw the button up there. It says 'AUTO.' That means it drives on its own."<br /><br />"What button? This car doesn't drive on its own, but if you tell me where the button is, I'll explain what it does."<br /><br />It is the button for my driver's side window, and it means that the window descends completely with a single press instead of having to be held down continuously until fully open. I explain this, but then I am struck by a realization that I hadn't really had before. I am talking to my six-year-old. She has another decade before she will learn to drive. <i>Will she learn to drive?&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>"</i>By the time you're old enough to learn to drive, though, it probably really will be an automatic car."<br /><br />"Cool," she responds absently. She's moved on to other thoughts, humming along to the four thousandth playing of the Kidz Bop version of "Seven Years," which is being broadcast through my car's stereo system from one of her many personalized Spotify playlists via Bluetooth. A thing that holds no marvel for her.<br /><br />I'm lost in a dense web of quickly connecting thoughts. <i>What will teaching someone to drive look like in ten years? If she&nbsp;doesn't have the skills to drive, will that be limiting somewhere down the line? It's not that big of deal. I don't know how to bake my own bread, and that's not a big deal. Not all skill sets need to be preserved. Wait. Maybe it is a big deal that I don't know how to bake bread. What other skills are we losing? What do we lose with them? Will there be rogue parents who teach their children 'old-fashioned' driving? Will we be legally allowed? Will we have to buy antique cars with outdated features to do so? What else will she not know how to do? But think of all the things she gets to do&nbsp;that weren't even a fantasy when you were her age. It's a trade off. Everything's a trade off.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i>At this point we arrived at our destination and my thoughts shifted to the minutiae of getting two kids safely out of the car and into the house. It didn't come back to me until I was in bed, trying to sleep.<br /><br />It's not just automatic cars. It's everything. As <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/07/hey-guess-what-were-homeschooling.html" target="_blank">I've mentioned before</a>, I'm homeschooling my daughter, so that means that the parameters of curriculum are on me. I get to decide what knowledge is necessary for her, and it's a responsibility I take seriously. It makes the future-focused concerns of parenting emerge from the fuzzy darkness in a crystal clear way. I've read <i>Outliers</i>. I know about the 10,000-hour rule. What she learns now matters, will shape her skillset in the future, will determine where she places her focus somewhere down the road, will open some doors and shut others. It's not that I think my choice of which math workbook I buy will make or break her future career choices, but I do know that these early years are framing her worldview and her interests in a way that lasts. That matters.<br /><br /><i>The&nbsp;New Yorker</i>&nbsp;ran a cartoon this summer entitled "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/things-im-afraid-my-daughter-will-be-doing-in-2026" target="_blank">Things I'm Afraid My Daughter Will be Doing in 2026</a>."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OsRpIHS4-Vo/WfGRNUsRIWI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/nzBuVRay10YE7op-l63zXEE4jzLvWESXACLcBGAs/s1600/170710_r30263b_rd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1222" data-original-width="1548" height="252" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OsRpIHS4-Vo/WfGRNUsRIWI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/nzBuVRay10YE7op-l63zXEE4jzLvWESXACLcBGAs/s320/170710_r30263b_rd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It included anxiety about the continued encroachment of technology on our lives and also anxiety about the downfall of society as a whole. Her daughter, in her mind, has equal chances of spending her teenage years "hacking into my Facebook account and reading all the mean things I said about her as a baby" or "watching a flame in a busted-out TV like those kids in 'The Terminator.'"&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It feels like a coin flip. Heads: a world so technologically advanced as to be unrecognizable and threaten the core principles of society. Tails: a world in impoverished, dystopian ruin where the institutions of education, government, and social order have completely broken down. In the meantime, what songs would you like me to add to your Spotify list this week, baby?&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I try not to fall into paranoia about the future. I try to remain hopeful, but the fast-paced news cycle bringing a constant barrage of doomsday scenarios intermixed with constant signals that the future will be nothing like the present is whiplash inducing. Today I read about Jeff Flake resigning from a career in politics because (as he said in his <a href="http://time.com/4995730/jeff-flake-senate-speech-donald-trump-republican-transcript/" target="_blank">speech announcing the decision</a>) "our children are watching." He couldn't bear the thought of contorting himself into a Trumpian pretzel of debased values in order to win his primary. Today I also read that Amazon Key will now allow delivery drivers to enter your house when you're not home so that you can get your packages with ease. (A move that is surely making a blueprint for a future when the human element of the delivery is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-25/amazon-s-dream-of-drone-deliveries-get-closer-with-trump-order" target="_blank">removed entirely</a>, and I can't decide if the thought of robots entering my house when I'm not home is better or worse than the thought of flesh-and-blood delivery drivers doing so.)&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-30zd2qdUNBs/WfGYYkDb_9I/AAAAAAAAEvg/njoUakwyFPwRE6DsPEMcabfvOUt3_jFMwCLcBGAs/s1600/Pu9MTKTuWOi7dDqIyZqA_urbex-ppc-062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-30zd2qdUNBs/WfGYYkDb_9I/AAAAAAAAEvg/njoUakwyFPwRE6DsPEMcabfvOUt3_jFMwCLcBGAs/s320/Pu9MTKTuWOi7dDqIyZqA_urbex-ppc-062.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm prone to anxiety and overanalyzing things, I realize, but I don't think it's far-fetched to think that the world my daughter enters won't look much like the world today in many ways. Truth be told, even the five-year age gap between my children is a big difference. When my daughter was born in 2010, I didn't have a smartphone. My son, born in 2016, has been video recorded and had near-daily pictures snapped of him since the moment he arrived in this world. Their earliest experiences of reality are already very different from one another, and they were born in the same decade. If my daughter sees no marvel in the pleasures of Spotify or Osmo games, my son will see even less reason to be impressed. He will probably see things that I would have looked at as alien technology as outdated relics from a distant and irrelevant past. And we're talking about five years.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">How do you raise kids in this environment?!&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I realize this is a question born of privilege and surrounded by privilege. Plenty of people throughout human history have raised their children in times full of much more perilous uncertainty. People have raised children through genocides and the ravages of active war. I'd much rather ask myself how I am going to prepare my daughter for an uncertain future career than watch the Black Plague claim my children before they escape infancy. Things aren't so bad. I know that.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We focus on the constantly oscillating matrix of fear and hope wrapped up in technological advancements. Maybe we'll all lose our jobs when the robots take over and end up without a means to support ourselves in a pseudo-capitalist society under <i>Hunger Games-</i>esque wealth inequality . . . . or. . . maybe we'll be freed up from menial and dangerous labor to pursue nobler acts like art and philosophy, enacting the Greek ideal life without the unethical practice of forcing slaves to make our wages. Again. Toss up.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In some ways the uncertainty is freeing. Instead of chasing after some specific future end point, it strips us down to our bare principles. What do I teach my child? To love. To learn. To think. To question. To explore. To experiment. To analyze. To grow. To adapt.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And maybe also how to make electricity from a potato--just in case our robot overlords throw us into eternal darkness.&nbsp;</div><br />http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/10/archer-in-blindfold-look-at-modern.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-8610941891363288740Sun, 10 Sep 2017 14:47:00 +00002017-09-10T09:47:22.527-05:00crimesocietyurban livingA Tale of Two DumpstersDo you want to know how to lose faith in humanity and start disliking everyone around you? Shovel (literally shovel) someone else's garbage up for an hour on a Sunday morning.<br /><br />Let me back up.<br /><br />Despite <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/04/next-year-when-i-decided-being-present.html" target="_blank">this post</a>&nbsp;boldly declaring that we were staying put in our smallish house because I had embraced a minimalist outlook (and the constraints of our budget), we actually moved a couple weeks ago. A series of events (some fortunate, some unfortunate, some neutral) led to us changing our minds and our circumstances, and now we're in a bigger space (<i>more than one bathroom!!!</i>) that really fits us well (<i>a <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/07/hey-guess-what-were-homeschooling.html" target="_blank">classroom for homeschooling</a>!!</i>)<br /><br />The new house is very close to the old house. It's about a mile away, crossing one major city street. In fact, we can easily walk between the two. The differences between the two, though, are somewhat shocking.<br /><br />That short jaunt put us in a different property tax bracket (<i>ten times</i>&nbsp;higher), a different alderman's ward, a different demographic make up (though both are pretty racially diverse), and . . . different dumpsters.<br /><br />Well, actually, the dumpsters are pretty much the same. The city has dedicated alley dumpsters for trash, yard waste, and recycling. They look the same, plopped down behind houses, in both neighborhoods. But there is definitely a different dumpster <i>culture</i>.<br /><br />The new house shares an alley with a very well-to-do block behind it. One of the first things I noticed when we were looking at houses was the <i>immaculate</i>&nbsp;state of the alleyways. Spotless! The alleyway behind my old house was frequently overflowing with illegally dumped garbage, a disgusting heap of disrespect and loss of hope.<br /><br />I have dumpsters located immediately behind my house in both locations, and that means that I am legally responsible for keeping them clean. A <a href="http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/5-on-your-side/a-strangers-trash-cost-her-money/469829273" target="_blank">recent local news story</a> explores how frustrating this can be. I can get fined because my neighbors (or someone driving in from somewhere else and illegally dumping) leave the alleyway a mess.<br /><br />This wouldn't be such a problem except for the house next to my old one is owned by <a href="https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/nathan-cooper-has-been-gobbling-up-st-louis-homes-and-raking-in-federal-money/Content?oid=6707136" target="_blank">this guy</a>. Disbarred for immigration fraud, a former lawyer turned real estate "investor" has gobbled up a ton of very cheap houses in my former zip code, done the bare minimum to get them up to "code," and then rented them out with absolutely no oversight over who lives there or what they do. He's preying on low income individuals who don't have other housing options and leaving them to live in substandard squalor, disrupting neighborhood stability as he rakes in the money.<br /><br />He has owned the house next to us for most of the time that we lived there. In that time, <i>several</i>&nbsp;families came and went. Many were great neighbors. Many were not. Some fought violently in the streets and left a litany of ordinance violations in their wake. Most were eventually evicted after the complaints stacked up and triggered the city's <a href="https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/public-safety/neighborhood-stabilization-office/documents/upload/m.%20Public%20Nuisance%20Ordinance%20685352.pdf" target="_blank">nuisance property process</a>.<br /><br />The tenants who were in this house most recently had been, to put it lightly, not great neighbors. They broke out our windows, fought constantly, dumped trash in our yard. There were also at least thirty people living in a two-bedroom house. The ongoing issues were one of the reasons we decided to move.<br /><br />Ironically, they were finally evicted just one week after we started living in our new house. They also left me some parting gifts when I returned to do some cleaning this weekend.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZGv7OPOlLh8/WbVK_KT6UMI/AAAAAAAAEuI/esFGrhx7buo97QLHnlmLE5PUG2dGHGqjgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_7837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZGv7OPOlLh8/WbVK_KT6UMI/AAAAAAAAEuI/esFGrhx7buo97QLHnlmLE5PUG2dGHGqjgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_7837.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I wish I could say that I was shocked, taken aback, completely flabbergasted by this. But it was not the first time (though I hope it is the last time) that I had to take a snow shovel and literally scoop up other people's garbage.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There's something intimate about garbage. Here I was scooping up bras and full, unopened canned goods. I found the cover of a Charles Dickens adaptation for kids. There were the toys that the children had played on for hours upon hours left in heaps.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's weird to feel so much sympathy even as you feel so much anger. I had talked to these neighbors several times. Their kids had played with my kids in my backyard. I didn't want to see their life thrown into upheaval with an eviction anymore than I wanted to be scooping up the aftermath of that resolution, but I also didn't want to keep living next to violent outbursts. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I left the alley in better shape than I found it, but it still doesn't hold a candle to the immaculate cleanliness of the alleyway behind our new house.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bsOHgKZHegU/WbVMUpZbjfI/AAAAAAAAEuQ/I8hQ5XaQzqkf06C2UvtHXsR4IWJlZMMkQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_7841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bsOHgKZHegU/WbVMUpZbjfI/AAAAAAAAEuQ/I8hQ5XaQzqkf06C2UvtHXsR4IWJlZMMkQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_7841.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I don't have any conclusions to this post. I don't know how to address gentrification, substandard housing, predatory slumlords, the instability of poverty, or my own place in it. I don't know how to feel about fleeing one neighborhood for a "better" one. I don't know what will happen to my former neighbors. I just know that the materiality of the dumpsters tells a tale of St. Louis in a way that makes all the statistics and handwringing very, very concrete to me.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">While my new neighbors use social media to advertise alley way pick up posts of their gently used and unwanted discards, my old neighborhood will continue to fill up with the haphazardly displaced belongings of evicted tenants. And I will continue to not know what to do or how to feel about it.&nbsp;</div><br />http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/09/a-tale-of-two-dumpsters.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-8553766968309878262Thu, 07 Sep 2017 03:22:00 +00002017-09-06T22:22:18.765-05:00humanityphilosophypodcastsrobotstechnologyAm I On Team Human: A Social Media Project Approach to Overthinking Things<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Am I on Team Human? It seems like an odd question. On the one hand, what other team would I be on? Not only am I a member of the human species (the most obvious reason for my allegiance) but I’m also a member of the “humanities” discipline, ostensibly dedicated to researching, cataloging, examining, and spreading what it is to be human. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The question of whether or not I am “on Team Human” references <a href="http://teamhuman.fm/" target="_blank">a podcast titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Team Human</i></a>. I stumbled upon it looking for something to listen to on a long drive. It’s hosted by Douglas Rushkoff and features thoughtful and thought-provoking conversations with experts across a range of disciplines as they examine the intersection of technology and humanity. Rushkoff’s tagline is that Team Human is the “last best hope” for humanity. <br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />I’ve listened to a half dozen or so of these episodes since my initial stumble upon them, and I recommend them. They’re interesting, and they definitely touch upon relevant questions that we should be asking.<br /> <br />That said, I haven’t been able to figure out if I align myself with “Team Human” as an opposition force. Am I against the rising technology around us? Do I believe that it is negatively impacting (or even eradicating) humanity? Can I be on Team Human if a robot vacuums my floors?</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RLLPSDS5bRI/WbC6U0ms9oI/AAAAAAAAEtw/9RES5p35e4w4v2PedamRL3Zqu4-SlSxQgCLcBGAs/s1600/18819419569_a05089a4bc_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="640" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RLLPSDS5bRI/WbC6U0ms9oI/AAAAAAAAEtw/9RES5p35e4w4v2PedamRL3Zqu4-SlSxQgCLcBGAs/s320/18819419569_a05089a4bc_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />While many of the episodes in this series have caught my interest, it’s the very first one I listened to (which is actually a two-parter) that has stuck with me. I listened to the first part in its entirety without distraction as I drove a very long and uneventful stretch of Midwestern highway, and then I listened to the second part on that same stretch of highway heading the other direction two days later.<br /> <br />For both episodes, I was left vacillating rapidly between cries of “YES” and “are you fucking kidding me?” This is unusual. Something that makes me move between total agreement and almost angry disagreement so many times is . . . worthwhile? Intriguing? Probably sitting at the intersection of some contradiction worth exploring?<br /> <br />The episodes in question feature a conversation between Rushkoff and his college best friend Walter Kirn (author of the novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Up in the Air </i>that became the George Clooney movie). The conversation is easy and engaging, and it winds through several different topics. I tried to summarize what I agreed with and what I disagreed with, but it didn’t work. The concerns were too tangled, and my own thoughts were bouncing too quickly into subtopics, wandering off into the woods.<br /> <br />I’ve been wanting to unpack my thoughts on this conversation for almost two months now, and I’ve finally decided that the only way to really do it is to listen to it again, pause when I get to something that makes me have something to say, and then write about it. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mvjcHF9OsVY/WbC64DsIRKI/AAAAAAAAEt4/MwbFRbLvRPYzIGB8ZD9rxAhm28g1yaQKwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_6769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mvjcHF9OsVY/WbC64DsIRKI/AAAAAAAAEt4/MwbFRbLvRPYzIGB8ZD9rxAhm28g1yaQKwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_6769.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> <o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="&#45;-"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false" DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99" LatentStyleCount="382"> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 7"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 8"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index 9"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Normal Indent"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="footnote text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="annotation text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="header"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="footer"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="index heading"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="table of figures"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="envelope address"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="envelope return"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="footnote reference"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="annotation reference"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="line number"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="page number"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="endnote reference"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="endnote text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="table of authorities"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="macro"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toa heading"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Bullet"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Number"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Bullet 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Bullet 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Bullet 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Bullet 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Number 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Number 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Number 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Number 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Closing"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Signature"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text Indent"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Continue"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Continue 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Continue 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Continue 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="List Continue 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Message Header"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Salutation"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Date"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text First Indent"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Heading"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text Indent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Body Text Indent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Block Text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Hyperlink"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="FollowedHyperlink"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Document Map"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Plain Text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="E-mail Signature"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Top of Form"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Normal (Web)"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Acronym"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Address"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Cite"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Code"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Definition"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Keyboard"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Preformatted"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Sample"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Typewriter"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="HTML Variable"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Normal Table"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="annotation subject"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="No List"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Outline List 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Outline List 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Outline List 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Simple 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Simple 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Simple 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Classic 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Classic 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Classic 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Classic 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Colorful 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Colorful 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Colorful 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Columns 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Columns 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Columns 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Columns 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Columns 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 7"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Grid 8"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 7"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table List 8"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table 3D effects 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table 3D effects 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table 3D effects 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Contemporary"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Elegant"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Professional"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Subtle 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Subtle 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Web 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Web 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Web 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Balloon Text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Table Theme"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 7"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 8"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Note Level 9"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Mention"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Smart Hyperlink"/> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <!--EndFragment--><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So that’s what I will be doing. I’m going to find out if I’m on Team Human or not. And if you have an interest in the intersections of technology, humanity, and the future of both, you might be interested in giving these episodes a listen and asking yourself that question with me. (<a href="http://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-45-walter-kirn/" target="_blank">Part 1 is here</a>; <a href="http://teamhuman.fm/episodes/kirn-pt2/" target="_blank">Part 2 is here</a>).&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/18819419569/in/photolist-uF1rMc-AZhaf-6odinW-6PECu-6a6cy5-8BXh-4jYn1D-AZhjf-7DVc-7k2hT-GH6aa-4o6om-aRp1hp-55s51v-9g67sV-8ChuB-nzygGv-9Hjew7-avfefk-9gE87-JWFjn-yXcsJ-3XcboQ-8ovfq1-yR6ec-8eRKQC-7k6y7h-aBpPc5-8od7Hh-5NXnz3-75mVp7-2yiQ1-9Fr6ey-7DXMYm-aVyp9-7teAn2-9oGis-875e7L-yR4Wi-avfefB-9g64p2-iawN-9Hgm5B-qxrKUd-4jYmX8-9Hgmqk-yR89o-9oGgv-75i4mt-7DYaFY" target="_blank">Mike Mozart</a></span></div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/09/am-i-on-team-human-social-media-project.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-5543227897565421140Wed, 12 Jul 2017 02:03:00 +00002017-07-11T21:05:33.698-05:00educationgiftednesshomeschoolingparentingtwice exceptionalityHey, Guess What! We're Homeschooling!So, we're homeschooling.<br /><br />I have tried to write this post five times. I have five separate versions of this post sitting in various states of completion in multiple mediums. That usually doesn't happen to me, so I know I'm sitting on some raw emotions. To date, I have the following versions of this story:<br /><br /><ul><li><b>The Angry One</b>- In this post, I rant and rave about a school system that failed my daughter and mistreated her so badly that I could not see straight. I get deep into the well of emotion as I describe watching my bright, funny, energetic little girl turn into a sullen, anxious, cloud of misery.</li></ul><ul><li><b>The Positive One</b>- In this post, I present my excitement about this new educational undertaking and go on and on about the possibilities that I've uncovered, the supportive communities I have found both virtual and in person, and the ways that it has already improved my daughter's mood and educational outcomes.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li><b>The Self-Dissecting One</b>- In this post, I try to unpack what it means for someone who has staked much of her identity (professional, political, and personal) on the principles behind public education to pull out of the public education system. I was educated in public schools through my BA. I teach in a community college. I believe in open access, publicly funded schools that meet the needs of a diverse set of learners.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li><b>The Activist One</b>- In this post, I veer quickly from my personal story to stats and anecdotes about the needs of "Twice Exceptional" children, the label that best fits my daughter. These are children who have both a diagnosis of giftedness and a diagnosis of some kind of learning disability or challenge (like ADHD). Often, they're emotional and social skills lag while their academic abilities soar, and the result is never finding a way to get their needs met on either side of the equation.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li><b>The Overwhelmed One</b>- In this post, I panic about the fact that my balancing act now includes finding a way to work full time, manage a household, raise two children (one still nursing and in diapers), and homeschool a first grader with special needs in multiple directions.&nbsp;</li></ul><div>Any one of those posts would have been a valid, honest account of what I've been thinking about, researching, and doing in the past four or so months, but none of them was quite right. I am at once disappointed, excited, overwhelmed, scared, hopeful, angry, and getting by. There are days when this seems like the best decision I have ever made and days when I don't know what I have gotten myself into. My kitchen table has been completely overtaken by workbooks, chemistry experiments, and library books. I am awash in a million open browser tabs of free resources, curriculum plans, and homeschooling blogs. I go down rabbit holes and make two weeks worth of lesson plans only to scrap them all the next day and start over.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I imagine that some people reading this who know me have some questions. How long will we do this? Will we homeschool both kids? Will we try a private school?&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know. I don't know the answer to any of those questions because this whole experience has taught me that my penchant for planning (and it is a strong one) is no match for the fact that life is unexpected and throws you some curveballs. This is not the path I imagined walking, but it is the best one for the moment, and I'm going to stay on it until I find a better one.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_Cnqv6f4OQ/WWWCir5id9I/AAAAAAAAEtY/u8r5swCMIcg2JhYI0Gy770pHgcSZ3YkTgCLcBGAs/s1600/34176259566_127a80f192_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_Cnqv6f4OQ/WWWCir5id9I/AAAAAAAAEtY/u8r5swCMIcg2JhYI0Gy770pHgcSZ3YkTgCLcBGAs/s320/34176259566_127a80f192_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Because here's the part that needs to stay from that angry post I mentioned above: at one point in this whole process, I was finding myself up against the need to fight for my daughter, to go to battle with the school district and insist upon accommodations. And that's what it felt like: a war. It felt like I was fighting the people charged with educating my daughter to educate her. And if we're fighting, we're on opposing sides, and my side is that I want my daughter to become a self-sufficient, supported, kind individual. If you're on the other side of that, what does that mean?&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately, my husband and I made this decision because we refuse to put our child in an environment where there is a battle over her well-being. Educating a child should not be a war. There should only be one side. And whether I homeschool for the rest of my daughter's childhood, send her to private school, or figure out some other arrangement, I know one thing: I will not settle for an educational environment that doesn't want her and support her.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Philip McEarlean</span></div><br /><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 193px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 906px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;"></span>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/07/hey-guess-what-were-homeschooling.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-2074276407377238108Sat, 29 Apr 2017 14:32:00 +00002017-04-29T09:42:33.652-05:00communityfitnessminimalismrhetoricsocial mediaThis Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Because We Got Rid of Them All): Is "Minspo" a Problem?I've mentioned a <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/12/minimalism-peace-and-time-for-fighting.html" target="_blank">few times</a> in <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/04/next-year-when-i-decided-being-present.html" target="_blank">previous posts</a> that I've been exploring and utilizing concepts from the increasingly popular "minimalist" movement. I started listening to <a href="http://www.theminimalists.com/podcast/" target="_blank">podcasts from The Minimalists</a> (who are now probably best known for their documentary <i>Minimalism. </i>After it appeared on Netflix, there was a fresh wave of people turning to these ideas). While I occasionally found the content verging into sanctimonious territory, I'm pretty good at taking what works and leaving what doesn't, and a lot of what they were saying worked for me.<br /><br />Adopting a minimalist framework helped me see my living space differently, make more conscious purchasing decisions, and put a name to a privileging of experiences and satisfaction with life over material wealth that had just been part of who I was for as long as I can remember. I wasn't cheap or a lazy decorator after all; I was just <i>a minimalist</i>. Voila!<br /><br />I turned to several Facebook groups aimed at providing inspiration, support, and community for minimalists, and in many ways they do exactly what they set out to do: inspire, support, and bring people together. Of course, as with any belief system that gets truncated into Facebook posts, there is the constant in-fighting over who is or who is not "really" a minimalist and who is merely dabbling with the trend without engaging. Constant litmus tests pop up. Do you hang things on your wall? Do you paint with colors other than white, off-white, and eggshell? Do your children own electronic toys? Do your children own toys at all? Do you have pets? Do you use tampons? Do you use toilet paper?<br /><br />Depending on who you are asking, there are people within these groups who will happily declare you NOT MINIMALIST if you answer yes to any of those questions. Of course, that starts a fresh wave of angry comments: "Minimalism means something different to everyone." "We're all at different places in our journey." "I thought that minimalism meant you minimized your negativity; you're not being very minimalist right now, either."<br /><br />The flip side of this (and one that I'll attest to being more personally sympathetic to) is when people (often new to the concept) come into the groups and ask a bunch of questions about how to properly declutter. "How many socks should I own?" "How many forks?" "How do I declutter more effectively?"<br /><br />Many long-term members of the group will get frustrated and say that minimalism isn't about decluttering but about making a long-term commitment to a simpler, more intentional way of living. The decluttering posts, in their opinion, detract from the philosophical aims of the movement and turn it into a superficial heap of decorating advice rather than a holistic way of interacting with the world.<br /><br />This decluttering/simplistic aesthetic can become something of a competition, and there are people who clearly take pleasure in seeing how far they can push the idea. It generates memes like this one:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o9IqWFOjXZo/WQRbP4dSLkI/AAAAAAAAErc/UdDiDup_lhYqVtoJH7ws8hBdXDuD9fjxgCLcB/s1600/17951664_10212553947705870_5862730353257128653_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o9IqWFOjXZo/WQRbP4dSLkI/AAAAAAAAErc/UdDiDup_lhYqVtoJH7ws8hBdXDuD9fjxgCLcB/s320/17951664_10212553947705870_5862730353257128653_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Recently, there has also been a lot of criticism of minimalism as a fad that ignores its own privilege. <i><a href="http://minimalism is for rich people" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> </i>calls minimalism "another boring product wealthy people can buy." Many people have <a href="http://rockingthehomesteadblog.com/2016/02/44065/" target="_blank">questioned </a>the way that minimalism <a href="https://theestablishment.co/the-troubling-trendiness-of-poverty-appropriation-4d3681406320" target="_blank">co-opts markers of poverty</a> and makes them trendy. &nbsp;<a href="https://bullshit.ist/are-there-no-people-left-that-enjoy-being-rich-d0131d76340b" target="_blank">This post</a> likens the moral superiority expressed by some minimalists to slut shaming for consumerists and says that it expresses "the shitty idea that one has to be poor in order to advance spiritually." (Of course, there are plenty of long-standing religious traditions that say exactly that, but I guess isolating them from the larger belief system and wrapping them up in Pinterest boards changes the delivery.)&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All that to say that there are <i>feelings</i>&nbsp;going on here. As I said earlier, I've gotten pretty good at taking what I want and leaving what I don't when it comes to dabbling in any self-helpy online communities. I did the Paleo diet for a while, realized it was way too strict (and honestly, at times cult-like) for me, so I took the parts of it that worked and left the rest. I have joined groups about positive parenting, but when the conversation jumps off the deep end into what does or does not constitute child abuse and shots have been fired from all sides, I typically just politely find my way out. If I do get involved in these debates, it is usually because I feel interested in the tension of the debate itself rather than because of a deep investment on one side or the other. After all, it's from the tension that we usually find the most interesting answers.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Still, I have to admit that at times the presentation of minimalism as a movement gets a little hard for me to swallow even as the actual practices have undoubtedly, meaningfully, and probably permanently changed the way that I live my life. The more I tried to unpack why that was, the more I kept thinking about fitspo.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If you don't know what fitspo is, you can read a few of my posts about it <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2012/06/thinspo-fitspo-and-judgment-what-do.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2015/01/the-this-girl-can-campaign-and.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Basically, fitspo (an abbreviated portmanteau of "fit" and "inspiration") is any of those social media memes that are designed to inspire people to fitness. They grew as an alternative (and ostensibly healthier and more positive version of) "thinspo" which of course stood for "thin inspiration." "Thinspo" was harshly criticized for promoting deeply unhealthy body image and contributing to disordered eating and obsessive exercise. Fitspo, what was originally supposed to be an answer to these problems, <a href="http://lovelivegrow.com/whats-the-difference-between-thinspo-and-fitspo-aboslutely-nothing/" target="_blank">pretty quickly devolved into "thinspo with muscles."</a> It used many of the same rhetorical approaches to "motivate" through tacit shaming and to portray isolated, unrealistic, and idealistic versions of "fitness" that were so limited as to be unattainable. Many body positive bloggers started <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/fixed-that-fitspo-for-ya?utm_term=.ykYllgDyX#.tcdQQ4678" target="_blank">taking on fitspo to point out its flaws</a>, producing "corrected" versions like these:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iwaTwRV1yTc/WQRfdcbut1I/AAAAAAAAEro/j_w5ueBLixA9ll9OcNOuHQEyAiMvylCsACLcB/s1600/original-7528-1424901696-16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iwaTwRV1yTc/WQRfdcbut1I/AAAAAAAAEro/j_w5ueBLixA9ll9OcNOuHQEyAiMvylCsACLcB/s320/original-7528-1424901696-16.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MMy1BP7o35g/WQRflU-08DI/AAAAAAAAErs/KrFtXS-GdFI3BEdtK-9Loff1qHgCYnDXQCLcB/s1600/enhanced-17508-1424903494-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MMy1BP7o35g/WQRflU-08DI/AAAAAAAAErs/KrFtXS-GdFI3BEdtK-9Loff1qHgCYnDXQCLcB/s320/enhanced-17508-1424903494-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The more that I thought about the way that minimalism is getting watered down in its delivery, the more I kept thinking about these problems with fitspo. I believe that fitspo has the potential to do a lot of good. I have personally seen many inspiring, thoughtful, and meaningful examples of fitspo that do not root themselves in shame and competition. I started collecting a lot of them on <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/balancingjane/feminist-and-body-positive-fitness/" target="_blank">this Pinterest board</a> as well as discussions about what makes a "fitspo" image (in my opinion) a positive one.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Basically, I could narrow down the criteria for a "good" piece of fitspo like this:&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><ol><li><b>Holistic</b>- Our bodies are complex, connected entities. Fitness is not chiseled abs. Fitness is not flexed biceps. Fitness is not rounded glutes. Fitness is the way that you use the body you have in the time and space you inhabit to accomplish a goal.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Diverse</b>- Images that show only one way to be fit are images that ignore reality. People have different kinds of bodies with different levels of ability. They can all be "fit" in different ways since they all have to inhabit time and space and accomplish goals.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Motivating</b>- It wouldn't really be "inspiration" without pushing the reader toward action.&nbsp;</li></ol><div>I personally find motivation for fitness through images that show bodies in motion, people taking action. I don't need to look at the <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2011/11/amputated-belly-rolls-visual-synecdoche.html" target="_blank">visual synecdoche</a> of isolated body parts.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bV9nbCe5uSA/WQRhyqpmBQI/AAAAAAAAEr4/EPnt0cvPht88a81-GQOE-rXpw9BU0JQJQCLcB/s1600/ea46d2572cabb21ff0f1339ce01cdb82.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bV9nbCe5uSA/WQRhyqpmBQI/AAAAAAAAEr4/EPnt0cvPht88a81-GQOE-rXpw9BU0JQJQCLcB/s320/ea46d2572cabb21ff0f1339ce01cdb82.jpg" width="166" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Images like this one reduce the person pictured to an object. The readers are asked not to see inspiration in the work that person did to achieve the desired results. Instead, the readers are asked to put themselves into that person's body. This is why the person is headless. This is why the camera is focused on the person's glutes and legs. Those aren't supposed to be <i>her</i>&nbsp;glutes. That's supposed to be <i>my </i>ass. And if I don't look like her (which I am never, ever, not ever, not in any way going to do), then I am failing. That's a lot of failing.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On the contrary, a holistic image that shows a full human being and their body in motion operates differently.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RwFT0XTPSrY/WQRicc4x-cI/AAAAAAAAEsA/fLkAo8VoJDoOmNrQocMb-DRiaqI3nQ2jgCLcB/s1600/508581404b7463d831217ffa6b14e3b3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RwFT0XTPSrY/WQRicc4x-cI/AAAAAAAAEsA/fLkAo8VoJDoOmNrQocMb-DRiaqI3nQ2jgCLcB/s320/508581404b7463d831217ffa6b14e3b3.jpg" width="277" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div>This image comes from the <a href="http://feministfitspo.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Feminist Fitspo tumblr</a>. This woman also has flexed muscles, but they're flexed not because she's posing for the camera but because that's what muscles do when you are actively using them. The rhetorical impact of this picture is not a request for me to read myself into her body. That is <i>her </i>body. She maintains her agency and individuality (and her head). I can be inspired without being asked to cannibalize. I can see someone else using their own body to do something amazing and then ask myself what amazing things I can do. Instead of a competition, it becomes about opening up possibilities.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Back to minimalism. Is "Minspo" a thing?&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some screenshots from <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pejper/minimalism/" target="_blank">the Pinterest board</a> "Minimalism," which has 90,000 followers.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e1drRoYUkAg/WQRj8gKEEJI/AAAAAAAAEsM/k1glih74dTke_2qVVYY0immFFzVZ9h1SwCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B4.55.58%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e1drRoYUkAg/WQRj8gKEEJI/AAAAAAAAEsM/k1glih74dTke_2qVVYY0immFFzVZ9h1SwCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B4.55.58%2BAM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-auiiQuPap20/WQRj9G0y1TI/AAAAAAAAEsQ/QgUDVX7rZkgSuOnRiqSAQvyRbKB4GPP6QCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B4.56.07%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-auiiQuPap20/WQRj9G0y1TI/AAAAAAAAEsQ/QgUDVX7rZkgSuOnRiqSAQvyRbKB4GPP6QCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B4.56.07%2BAM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>This is a pretty typical representation of what you'll get if you're looking for minimalist inspiration on Pinterest: pin after pin of white walls, simple furniture, and empty spaces.&nbsp;</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'd call this "Minspo." I think that it's serving the same purpose as "fitspo" in that it aims to inspire people to adopt a minimalist lifestyle. Just as fitspo can have different rhetorical aims, so can minspo.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In many ways, those images of all those white rooms are similar to the isolated body parts of some "fitspo." Just like the dissected abs, these images show a tiny part of someone's living space in an incredibly staged way that isn't reflective of the way people actually live. Just like these <a href="https://www.theodysseyonline.com/fitness-instagram-vs-reality" target="_blank">fitness bloggers</a> demonstrated that <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/25/more-women-show-how-deceptive-those-fitspiration-before-and-after-instagram-pics-can-be-5716829/" target="_blank">their staged photos and "real" photos are vastly different</a>, I'd venture to guess that even the photos of minimalism that were taken in real homes (rather than staged studios specifically for this purpose) are carefully curated snapshots of an artificial moment.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We all do it! I am much more likely to photograph that birthday cake I made from the angle that shows the shiny, perfectly smooth icing rather than the one that shows where I got impatient and melted it by putting it on too fast. I'll take cute picture of my son and then crop out the pile of laundry behind him. We want to display the version of our lives that we think reflects the best of it. That's normal.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But what happens is that these images become so pervasive when we scroll through page after page of them that we start looking at them through a different lens. Just like the disconnected body parts of fitspo invite us not to be inspired but to place ourselves within them, too much time consuming those dissected pieces of a living space turn them from an inspirational suggestion of decor and into a judgment of our own spaces, spaces that are not staged photography sites but real life houses with human beings living in them.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div>There is another kind of "Minspo" you might find, which is simply text images with quotes designed to inspire you to own less. Joshua Becker, a minimalist blogger at&nbsp;<i><a href="http://www.becomingminimalist.com/about-us/" target="_blank">Becoming Minimalist</a></i>, has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pinterest.com/joshuabecker/minimalism/" target="_blank">a Pinterest board filled with these</a>.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mBXgW79w5zg/WQRlKCpp7SI/AAAAAAAAEsg/RLzhoehM0gsLYUyPuwsBHqM8NMsbVgdBACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B5.01.14%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mBXgW79w5zg/WQRlKCpp7SI/AAAAAAAAEsg/RLzhoehM0gsLYUyPuwsBHqM8NMsbVgdBACLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B5.01.14%2BAM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ba_3uX-Dukk/WQRmU2S5aRI/AAAAAAAAEs4/XUnWYViZzdAoCIPkotzqipisFxaAVWt4wCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B5.01.02%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ba_3uX-Dukk/WQRmU2S5aRI/AAAAAAAAEs4/XUnWYViZzdAoCIPkotzqipisFxaAVWt4wCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-29%2Bat%2B5.01.02%2BAM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Taken on their own, things like "own less. do more." and "'Tis Better to Donate Than Accumulate" are simple maxims that can help fight a consumerist onslaught of marketing. It's a way to ground ourselves and remember that many of the "needs" placed upon us by corporate interests aren't really needs at all. I've personally found these messages motivating, and I can name at least a dozen things that I didn't purchase (but probably would have in the past) since I have worked to become more intentionally mindful of what I do or don't buy.<br /><br />The problem with these images comes when we immerse ourselves in them too long and too often. Mantras can morph from inspiration into shame. We can begin to look around our homes and see these words pop up in our minds.<br /><br />Many people in these minimalist groups mock (often light-heartedly) older generations for hoarding unnecessary items because they grew up in a time when "waste not, want not" was the pervasive societal message. They got that message fed to them not through Pinterest boards, but through the necessity of economic realities. In many ways, minimalism is growing out of similar motivations. Younger people tend to be embracing minimalism at increasing rates, and I think a lot of it has to do with facing an economic reality that has made it obvious we won't be living the "American Dream" as it was sold to us. The suburban sprawl of 4000 square feet McMansions isn't sustainable or affordable for many of us. A lot of us are looking at crushing student debt for degrees that we can't use because the job market has changed so rapidly. Automation promises to make obsolete many careers that were once safe paths to the middle class. In some ways we're not so much seeking out minimalism as embracing our realities.<br /><br />Still, too much time spent submerged in this kind of "inspiration" starts to change the way you think. Suddenly you may find yourself "decluttering" every weekend for months on end. You might find yourself feeling resentful of objects in your home. Many people in these groups report fights with spouses who are not okay with getting rid of as many things. Some threads devolve into competitions over who can throw out the most bags of things in a day.<br /><br />Much like a fitspo binge that leaves you pinching fat rolls in the mirror and obsessively counting calories, this isn't good for you. The point of getting inspired is to make your life <i>better</i>, not worse. If you leave a page full of inspirational quotes feeling like a failure, they weren't actually inspirational quotes--even if they would have been for someone else in another context.<br /><br />What makes me sad about this is that I have seen many people declare they're convinced they'll never "make it to minimalism" as if there is some end goal. As if getting rid of just five more pairs of socks will unlock some achievement badge. As if once you finally finish removing all your extra cookie sheets or painting that last blue accent stripe white, you'll be "done" and can officially wear your Minimalist Pin to the club events.<br /><br />This is as silly as thinking that the last five sit-ups or the last three pounds or pushing yourself to the risk of injury in order to shave the last ten seconds off your running lap are going to somehow make you eternally "fit."<br /><br />I didn't get into it in this post, but the exact same phenomenon--complete with the inspirational posts we tend to share on social media--could also be applied to healthy food choices.<br /><br />These are journeys. Lifelong ones. Turning to these communities can be a great way to get some advice on how to make a guided choice within a framework that makes sense and inspires you. But if you end up spending too much time there and immersing yourself in that language day after day, you run the risk of losing sight of the fact that this is but one facet of a complex life. Turn to these groups and memes for a moment (except those horrible fitspo ones that turn you into dissected abs and biceps; I advise not turning to those at all). Then move on. Come back when you feel the need for inspiration, and turn away any time your feelings of motivation and excitement start to turn to feelings of comparison and shame.<br /><br />This is your life, not a race. The only end is the final one. Spend your time wisely.http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/04/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-1744769759486102830Sat, 01 Apr 2017 14:41:00 +00002017-04-01T10:01:15.559-05:00happinesshousekeepinglife lessonsmeditationminimalism"Next Year": When I Decided "Being Present" Wasn't Just BSIn my many attempts to gain some order over my life and fight off the ever-present dragons of anxiety, I've often been given advice to be "present-centered" or "live in the moment."<br /><br />Most times, I smiled blankly and nodded, feeling as if this advice (whether coming from a friend, a motivational piece of writing, or a mental health professional) was akin to telling me my lungs would work better if they "just stopped needing oxygen."<br /><br />I'm a planner. It's central to my identity to have a sense of the future and what I'll be doing in it. I love designing curriculum for my classes down to the minute details. I like organizing lists of possible summer camps for my daughter and color coding them to determine the best fit.<br /><br />I distinctly remember a conversation with my husband after a particularly rough day of living life where I was sitting on the bed and opened my computer to look at my Google calendar with all of its to-do lists and color coordinating activities. "Ah," I said out loud. "This is the calmest I've been all day long."<br /><br />"Really?!" He was incredulous.<br /><br />"Yeah, looking at my calendar makes me feel so at ease."<br /><br />"That is literally the opposite of how looking at a calendar makes me feel," he replied.<br /><br />It was an interesting insight into the dynamics of our relationship, but it is also a clear picture of how I function. I like my time to be planned, ordered, and controlled. I hate being late, and I want meetings set weeks in advance so that I can come to them prepared and confident. My brain often focuses on the future, and I've always thought that advice to do otherwise was asking for trouble. After all, my future-focused brain had allowed me to accomplish a lot. It was at least partially responsible for success in my education, career, and family. All of those areas of my life had required planning and the ability to map out ways to achieve complex, multi-faceted tasks.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AUf-pDguh3k/WN6gvYJ5-HI/AAAAAAAAEqg/JqI_yNwBR5g19yqN9iKhtLl5Mxs8hJbdwCLcB/s1600/tumblr_inline_nlubfddCbU1slrvm0.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AUf-pDguh3k/WN6gvYJ5-HI/AAAAAAAAEqg/JqI_yNwBR5g19yqN9iKhtLl5Mxs8hJbdwCLcB/s320/tumblr_inline_nlubfddCbU1slrvm0.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My spirit animal, Leslie Knope.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>My husband and I bought our first home eight years ago when we were 23. We reasoned it was a "starter home," as the terminology goes. It has three bedrooms (though one doesn't have a closet, so I think it's technically a "bonus room") and one bathroom. It is about 1400 square feet.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>When we first moved in, it was just the two of us and two cats. We added a dog that first year. We told ourselves we'd probably move again in about three years.</div><div><br /></div><div>We added our daughter two years later. We told ourselves we would move when we were settled into our new role as parents. "Next year. We'll move next year."&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Things kept moving along. We even put our house on the market once, but we didn't put much effort into it (more out of laziness than anything). We didn't get any interest, so, "Next year."&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>We looked into options to rent it out instead. In the meantime, we didn't hang pictures or paint walls. We didn't replace carpet or fix up the yard. We weren't sure what we were going to do with it, and it felt like a waste of time and energy. "Next year."&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Then we added our son in the past year. Surely moving with an infant seemed silly. "Next year."&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>We're now a family of four in a space that many of our professional peers would deem "too small" for our needs.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>When we first moved in, there were rooms we never even entered. Beyond our own bedroom, the other two were simply storage, and not well managed or maintained storage. We basically just threw stuff in there and shut the doors. When our daughter came, we crammed all that stuff into the bonus room and shut that door. When our son came, we finally had to deal with it. In the end, we kept almost nothing from that room, and why would we? If it could sit untouched for more than five years, we obviously didn't need it. Over the past two years, we have donated, recycled, or trashed most of the things we don't use. That process isn't complete, but most of the things in my home now serve purpose and are intentionally placed there. It's a nice change.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>As I mentioned in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/12/minimalism-peace-and-time-for-fighting.html" target="_blank">an earlier post</a>, I've been reading about minimalism quite a bit. In my dabbling, I've found several people talking about downsizing. In the extreme, this has led to the&nbsp;<a href="https://greenfuture.io/sustainable-living/tiny-houses-sustainable-living" target="_blank">"tiny house" movement</a>&nbsp;as a way to push back against a notion that bigger is better when it comes to living space.<br /><div><br /></div><div>While I do have general ecological and sustainability concerns as a human being aware of my impact on the world around me, I am not looking to join a tiny house movement or push myself to the extreme in avoiding consumption. I just want to make my life simpler and more enjoyable.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>But reading all of the discussions about the housing question in these minimalists groups and writings did start to raise some questions for me.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Houses are getting bigger, even post-recession.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/upshot/houses-keep-getting-bigger-even-as-families-get-smaller.html" target="_blank">This 2016&nbsp;<i>NYT&nbsp;</i>article&nbsp;</a>explains that a third of newly constructed homes top 3,000 square feet. The average is 2,687. Even as the size of families has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.census.gov/hhes/families/files/graphics/HH-6.pdf" target="_blank">steadily falling</a>&nbsp;and reached a low of 2.5 in 2016, the number of bedrooms in newly constructed houses has grown with nearly half having four or more.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Couple that with the social media pressure of being "Pinterest-worthy," and that's a lot of space to not only inhabit but decorate and fill (and heat and cool).&nbsp;</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Getting rid of many of the superfluous items in our house and rejecting some of the pressure to refill those empty spaces has done a lot to alleviate my ongoing struggles with housekeeping, and that has made me recognize that my "too small" space isn't really too small at all. Sure, we're cramped by the standards that have made homes twice the size of ours average, but the more I examined our habits, the more I realized that we don't actually need more space. In fact, there is a lot to suggest that much of that extra space is actually being used as storage. And even with vastly larger homes, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06self-storage-t.html?em" target="_blank">storage rental industry is booming</a>, with many people paying a monthly fee on an indefinite basis to have even more storage for their stuff. What is the likelihood that all of those people (1 in 10 have rental space) are actually going to their storage sheds and using those things on a regular basis? It seems much more likely that those items are just sitting there, untouched, waiting to become fodder for reality TV.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IsbPlTOKxCw/WN-29egVneI/AAAAAAAAEqw/6LnM4eg29_4I50gLAu9c2Q6Q329dKO24QCLcB/s1600/storage-wars1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IsbPlTOKxCw/WN-29egVneI/AAAAAAAAEqw/6LnM4eg29_4I50gLAu9c2Q6Q329dKO24QCLcB/s320/storage-wars1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All of this reading and reflecting on the role of possessions, the value of space, and the way that cultural norms regarding housing size standards across the world, I began to question the internal pressure I was putting on myself to leave our "starter home." Once I began questioning, I realized it wasn't actually internal pressure at all; it was entirely external. I wasn't unhappy with my space. I wasn't feeling cramped or frustrated (though I would definitely appreciate a second bathroom; a project we're now planning to embark upon). I didn't think my kids were suffering with small rooms.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dXNwEHTvIs8/WN-3u5OUrsI/AAAAAAAAEq4/gso4q_pjXdYqkFD_TycwiunpfqGnrj61ACLcB/s1600/gallery-1440617303-love-abode-infographic-house-sizes-around-the-world-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dXNwEHTvIs8/WN-3u5OUrsI/AAAAAAAAEq4/gso4q_pjXdYqkFD_TycwiunpfqGnrj61ACLcB/s640/gallery-1440617303-love-abode-infographic-house-sizes-around-the-world-1.jpg" width="539" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Instead, I was asking myself what other people would think. We already live in a neighborhood far more run-down than most of our professional peers. We already chose to stay in the city when most of the people we knew had left for the suburbs when they had kids (and trust me, I understand the choice; the school situation alone is enough to drive you mad.) Were people questioning why we hadn't moved? What would people think when I invited them over? Could I have people over at all if my kitchen table only seats four? If my daughter has a friend come play, will that friend go home and tell her parents our house isn't nice?&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Those were the questions that were making me want to move, and those questions are ridiculous. So what if I have to throw <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/5-rules-for-hosting-a-crappy-dinner-party-235815" target="_blank">crappy dinner parties</a>? I have good, real friendships. They won't care. I bet they're also not questioning why we live where we live, and if they are, so what? I know why I've made the choices that I have, and I'm not spending my day worrying about why they made different ones. I wasn't hearing the voices of real people; I was hearing the voices of imaginary ones, and so a decision was made.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>I'd be damned if imaginary people were going to run me out of my house!&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We're staying put. Perhaps eventually we'll decide that this house really <i>is </i>too small: when both kids are bigger, when we decide we have to have more furniture, I don't know what the future holds. But for the foreseeable future, this space is plenty, so we're staying. No more "next years."&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Once I made that decision, it was like a switch was flipped inside of me. That very next weekend, I printed pictures, bought frames, and hung things on the walls. Two weeks later, I asked my mom to come help me paint all the rooms in the upstairs, rooms that had been the same beige color since we moved in nearly a decade ago. I'm making plans now to landscape the mud pit of a back yard so that we could actually, I don't know, use it to hang out?&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vhp4H8lFXiA/WN-5c7mpqsI/AAAAAAAAErI/DGnPkK4aMPwwJz-TR2L9p7Xg6RqDEJ6pQCLcB/s1600/IMG_6817.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vhp4H8lFXiA/WN-5c7mpqsI/AAAAAAAAErI/DGnPkK4aMPwwJz-TR2L9p7Xg6RqDEJ6pQCLcB/s320/IMG_6817.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p3Y21EIvaF4/WN-5c2gj_-I/AAAAAAAAErE/JOFQ2D6L5wYX_Cclv9A-pq-LK_IMnR3NgCLcB/s1600/IMG_6818.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p3Y21EIvaF4/WN-5c2gj_-I/AAAAAAAAErE/JOFQ2D6L5wYX_Cclv9A-pq-LK_IMnR3NgCLcB/s320/IMG_6818.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I started living in my house.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Before that, I had been merely waiting in my house, waiting for some fictional "next year" to start my "real" life. But this was my real life, and it was fine. It was better than fine. It was pretty good.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Suddenly, all that advice to "live in the moment" made a lot more sense. By loaning out my happiness and contentment to a hypothetical future, I was robbing myself of peace and gratitude. I was constantly looking at my surroundings as a vehicle for something better instead of recognizing the good I already had. It wasn't until we made the decision to stay put that I really felt invested in and committed to my space, and once I did, I started making it reflect the appreciation and love that I really do feel for it. What if I had done this years ago? I lost out on a decade of being happy and satisfied with my home, and I have no one to blame but myself.&nbsp;</div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/04/next-year-when-i-decided-being-present.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-8617065202826336659Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:29:00 +00002017-03-22T09:29:17.652-05:00advertisingbody imagerhetoricvisual rhetoricweightFive Thoughts About this "Boot Camp" AdThese began popping up all over the city just as the early-blooming daffodils started to die in the forty-degree temperature drop that happened to coincide with my "spring" break.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_sic9TXboM/WNKImIc5soI/AAAAAAAAEqQ/vsDVnoYmlaEm3DlrIwdr9eUebfdPxZqZACLcB/s1600/IMG_6836.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_sic9TXboM/WNKImIc5soI/AAAAAAAAEqQ/vsDVnoYmlaEm3DlrIwdr9eUebfdPxZqZACLcB/s320/IMG_6836.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As I'm driving past all of these other harbingers of warmer weather in the form of body shaming calls to get "summer ready," I've had some thoughts.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">1) <i>A pound a day?! Is "boot camp" a euphemism for "back to back to back to back stomach flus?"&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2) <i>678? Where the hell is that? </i>(Googles, but not while driving. Safety first.) <i>Atlanta. Well, this is St. Louis, so that's weird.&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">3) <i>That shadow woman certainly looks confident with her Wonder Woman pose, and her shadow hair is nicer than my real hair. I don't think this image conveys what they want it to convey.&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">4) <i>Speaking of that image, did they cut that other woman out of her? Is the thirty pounds she lost out there dancing somewhere&nbsp;with those jazz hands?&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">5) <i>Maybe this was originally an Atlanta-based pixie exorcism company who decided to recycle their logo when they picked up and moved out of town in shame.&nbsp;</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><br />http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/03/five-thoughts-about-this-boot-camp-ad.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-7564597629212683882Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:05:00 +00002017-03-09T22:05:07.526-06:00bookscommunity collegerhetoricteachingteaching philosophyThe Bored and the Restless: Teaching Composition as a Cure for Mental WanderlustI have a bad habit of trying to do too much. I'm not just talking about doing too many individual things at one time (though I'm also sometimes guilty of that; I almost set my phone in a frying pan the other day). I'm talking about trying to master too many trades, explore too many hobbies, understand too many fields.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div>I appreciate the value of going deep into a single subject instead of skipping like a stone across the surface of a broader field, but at the end of the day, I think I might just be better suited at being a skipped stone.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wSCiJC-QJT8/WMIfTXE64iI/AAAAAAAAEpk/2gGvmPAwtn4rxCTTjf5EReqJHBRIOXjQgCLcB/s1600/3355268069_28e142e85f_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wSCiJC-QJT8/WMIfTXE64iI/AAAAAAAAEpk/2gGvmPAwtn4rxCTTjf5EReqJHBRIOXjQgCLcB/s320/3355268069_28e142e85f_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's not that I can't commit to something and stick with it. I mean, I have a PhD, and that required &nbsp;years of deeply studying the same ideas. But even while I was getting that degree, I was taking a non-traditional path that wove through several different points of focus: working as an academic program coordinator, parenting, playing roller derby.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If I end up sitting in one place too long, I feel myself burning out fast, and I start to get restless. The urge to move onto something else becomes thick, like something choking me.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That's why I think that teaching composition is the perfect career for me. I still get restless. I still have the urge to start over with something new. I still feel like an animal caught in a trap now and then and panic.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But then I just choose a new book and plan a completely new class. Problem solved.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I started to feel that familiar feeling a little last semester, but I had just had a new baby and didn't think I should rock the boat all that much, so when the book order forms came up, I went ahead and stuck with the books I'd been using: Dorian Lynskey's <i>33 Revolutions per Minute</i>&nbsp;(a book about the history of protest songs) for one class and <i>Monsters</i>&nbsp;(a collection about, well, monsters) in the other.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is my fourth semester teaching <i>33 Revolutions</i>, and the organization of my class really clicked this time around. I feel like the pacing, the timing of the readings, the supplemental assignments are all working really well. In some ways, it's kind of a shame. As soon as I get a class running really smoothly, I know it's time to let it go.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For a while I worried that making changes whenever things got too smooth meant I was cheating my students out of the best possible class: the one where I don't feel the need to change anything because it's all working so well. I've been reflecting on that, and I don't feel that way anymore.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Teaching should be messy. If I've gotten any particular class down to the point that I don't feel the need to tweak it, then I'm not as engaged as I should be. Choosing a new book to frame the class forces me back into a place of exploration and innovation. It makes me pay more attention, and it makes me more likely to hear my students' ideas anew instead of constantly sorting them into categories that I've already carved out for that particular topic.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I teach best when I'm a little off balance. My best teaching comes when there is a dash of fear and a bit of anxiety thrown into the mix.&nbsp;</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JjN-Ai8eT9A/WMIiOZIrwoI/AAAAAAAAEp0/dU6ldzpE6TMjN0v7dn7RkFxGS_ywP-_jwCLcB/s1600/4970006474_1eb056bb67_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JjN-Ai8eT9A/WMIiOZIrwoI/AAAAAAAAEp0/dU6ldzpE6TMjN0v7dn7RkFxGS_ywP-_jwCLcB/s320/4970006474_1eb056bb67_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This summer, I'm going to be planning courses around two completely new books, and just choosing them has made that restless feeling lie back down and take a nap. The sense of possibility and wide-openness makes me feel calm. I start looking at the world around me with new eyes, trying to find possible supplemental texts to save for the class. Voluntarily stepping back into the chaos of not having a plan makes me feel more ordered.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the fall, I'll be teaching John Hudak's <i>Marijuana: A Short History</i>&nbsp;to my developmental writing students and Martin Ford's <i>Rise of the Robots:&nbsp;Technology and the Threat&nbsp;of a Jobless Future</i>&nbsp;to my research writing class.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Both present challenges that I'm finding energizing.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I worried about putting down a book called <i>Marijuana</i>&nbsp;on my book order forms, but the more I looked at the book, the more possibilities I see for a well-rounded, interesting, and relevant class. There are so many lenses through which we can tackle the issue: etymological (marijuana vs. cannabis), criminal justice, biological, and public policy. There are so many real-life writing exercises with built-in rhetorical purposes: letters to legislators, public safety bulletins, advertisements.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Rise of the Robots</i>&nbsp;offers me the challenge of teaching a topic with full consideration of its impact on my students. These are college sophomores. Discussing the threat of a "jobless future" could be pretty bleak for people just starting out (or starting anew) in the workforce. I believe this class can be taught in a way that ends on a high note of innovation and creativity, but it's going to take some careful navigation.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If anyone out there has good sources or suggestions for either of those topics, I'm in the brainstorming stage and would love to hear your thoughts.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I think I've got a good three or four semesters before I feel the need to wander off again.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pommiebastards/3355268069/in/photolist-67uCit-4fMtPv-8RTz3c-76e2Yq-a3DvyN-76a8VP-5fZjkD-6owKLi-5yyMqp-c2SorU-2dmsZv-6qX8LH-8TJ92r-6mvTMr-gsHQgW-67HrNj-a1w1gX-9GALx-gtnXc-qDLGR1-p8zkdm-5gayTu-b9Ntb6-fRJxY-a4hLuu-LWd7-5mTrNE-c8jHw-dmHayQ-75nMqy-bgsBPM-4CZFCM-6BZ46S-HUi7P-5tF2dJ-cVUMnj-q9G2tn-f3qGpQ-6CM7yB-9Ue3Nb-3fBWRN-4CZFJ8-9qr1hj-5oc5RA-9GM7VJ-9KSTtj-od9KxM-5cWXb-2XZGQZ-6E5bCr" target="_blank">Pommiebastards</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gnatallica/4970006474/in/photolist-8zbzLN-u7u3gW-rUZ65G-yobBT9-89A6WU-uJKey5-NaHWtX-LULs8L-7Lo7F9-zuaRHQ-bJxQLX-cMPWg-ajZjrW-CD66Pa-7LtWs5-vqGkDH-oZD9RR-hxdsiD-99jRvc-abRYEL-fcwVsq-9WM7HV-8AzW9w-bjbsSg-9QBu7p-nktV2X-9z9Lbr-5thzT4-oHa2CB-bEvkf4-oH9nMt-afKVYM-fz8yuT-678nLd-pZg3b9-9eLLwz-bEvjM8-f9QwFA-83xBrW-oJpYzQ-5oZeHv-oZBkD3-5sFZiV-5TkWdn-5c7j62-2k37eb-8sgymh-6mtaax-dp6RKx-d4sNFQ" target="_blank">Natalie Curtiss</a>,</span></div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/03/the-bored-and-restless-teaching.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-592132547539757264Mon, 30 Jan 2017 14:24:00 +00002017-01-30T08:24:37.572-06:00activismcommunitypoliticsrhetoricTrumpHow to Tell a Trump Voter "I Told You So" How should you go about telling your friends and family who voted for Trump "I told you so!" now that Trump's worst campaign rhetoric is being enacted as policy?<br /><br />Don't.<br /><br />How should you mock your uncle who forwarded you all those chain letters and blog posts about Clinton's private email server now that Trump's administration is doing the exact same thing?<br /><br />Don't.<br /><br />How should you demonstrate your clear superiority, the fact that you saw this coming and yelled loudly that we had to stop it?<br /><br />Don't.<br /><br />How should you point out that all of the Trump supporters on your social media feeds who between November and January were constantly telling you to "let it go" and "wait and see" have fallen completely silent in the last week?<br /><br />Don't.<br /><br />I'm going to make an assumption that if you are as disgusted, angry, and fearful about what Trump has done with a mere week in office as I am that you--also like me--want to fight back with the greatest power possible. I am going to assume that seeing this man lie repeatedly (with "alternative facts") with a straight face about all of the voter fraud he "knows" happened has made you realize that we're dealing with something unprecedented. I am going to assume that watching legal US residents get barred from returning home this weekend sent chills down your spine, and your head echoed with the reminders of how other human atrocities have begun. I am going to assume that you weren't surprised when he didn't release his tax returns or divest himself from his businesses as promised, but that you are outraged that the highest office in our country is being used to line a failed businessman's pockets instead of governing the people. I am going to assume that you watched Bannon get handed an insane amount of power for which he has no qualifications and shuddered.<br /><br />I am going to assume that you want to fix it.<br /><br />If that's the case, then we have to give the people who voted for Trump (many reluctantly) room to pivot. We can't give the impression that half of the country is okay with what's happening because I know that they're not. I know that many, many people who thought Trump would suffice now see that they've made a mistake. It's a mistake we need to discuss. We can talk about social media echo chambers, legitimate news sources, religious-like devotion to partisan identity. We can talk about all of those things--but not today. Today we need to come together. Today we need to recognize that we have far more in common than this administration would like us to believe.<br /><br />Think about what they've done. They're throwing so many executive orders (and I say <i>they</i> because I believe Bannon is as much behind it as Trump--maybe more) at us at once so that we can't get our feet under us. They throw out the most divisive topics (abortion, immigration) to ensure that we're fighting each other instead of recognizing we've all been had. They're banking on us tearing each other to shreds while they walk away with our democracy.<br /><br />We can't let that happen.<br /><br />The strongest moments of our democracy have come forth when unlikely groups formed focused coalitions around shared ideals. Those coalitions don't always last long, and we can go back to arguing over the meaningful differences we have after our work is done, but right now--today--our work is to reclaim our democracy, and we do that together.<br /><br />If we don't, I fear it really will be too late. Don't make me say I told you so.http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/01/how-to-tell-trump-voter-i-told-you-so.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-6521916131014444509Mon, 30 Jan 2017 03:59:00 +00002017-01-29T21:59:56.317-06:00debatesmayoral racepoliticsst. louisMayoral Debate SummaryI realize that I have readers for whom this will be completely irrelevant, but I went to a St. Louis mayoral debate tonight and have been asked to share my thoughts, so this is the easiest platform for me to do that.<br /><br />This debate was put on by several non-profit (and progressive) organizations around the city, including the amazing folks at <a href="http://www.archcitydefenders.org/" target="_blank">Arch City Defenders</a>, <a href="http://empowermissouri.org/" target="_blank">Empower Missouri</a>, <a href="http://www.handsupunited.org/" target="_blank">Hands Up United</a>, and the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/stlactioncouncil/" target="_blank">St. Louis Action Council</a>. (See the <a href="http://capcr-stl.org/mayoral-debate/" target="_blank">full list of sponsors here</a>). The debate as a whole was amazingly well organized and focused, and I was very impressed. It was also well attended, with standing room only even after an entire row of extra chairs was added. (I heard someone say they estimated 1500 people). They also provided <a href="https://littlesis.org/maps/1862-graphic-who-s-funding-the-five-stl-mayoral-front-runners" target="_blank">a very detail map</a> of endorsements and campaign funding sources for the candidates (which doesn't view well on a phone, by the way). Finally, they provided a pre-debate survey with <a href="http://capcr-stl.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Pre-Debate-responses-booklet-for-web.pdf" target="_blank">detailed responses</a> from all participants.<br /><br />The participants did not include all of the many people running for mayor, but it did include the frontrunners. We heard from Antonio French, Tishaura Jones, Lyda Krewson, Lewis Reed, and Jeff Boyd.<br /><br />My overall impression of the debate performances is pretty much summed up in this tweet:<br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">My reaction to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wokevoterstl?src=hash">#wokevoterstl</a> debate: <a href="https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench">@AntonioFrench</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/tishaura">@tishaura</a> won. <a href="https://twitter.com/LydaKrewson">@LydaKrewson</a> survived. <a href="https://twitter.com/PresReed">@PresReed</a> stumbled. <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBoyd4Mayor">@JeffBoyd4Mayor</a> was there.</div>— Tony Messenger (@tonymess) <a href="https://twitter.com/tonymess/status/825853520830148610">January 29, 2017</a></blockquote>I have some more personal reactions to the candidates and, though I entered an undecided voter, I exited with my mind made up. Before I get to that, here are some highlights from the issues discussed.<br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Homelessness</u></b></span><br /><br />Addressing the problem of homelessness came up in a couple of different points of the debate through a few different lenses. Reed was asked early on to clarify his pre-debate survey response in which he was critical of the current efforts to address homelessness but offered no concrete policies of his own. He mentioned better understanding the population to address causes of homelessness in a more focused way, but the specific policy was still lacking. Immediately after that Boyd was asked about whether he supported more police training to handle addiction with more sensitivity, and he said we should find additional resources to do so, but didn't offer where they might come from.<br /><br />Krewson was hit with some questions about previous support to criminalize panhandling (which included a fine and jail time). She defended her action as having been part of the Real Change Program, which was put in place in conjunction with well-known organizations that help the homeless. Similarly, she countered criticism over wanting to shut down downtown shelter NLEC by pointing out that they don't provide continuous care and put people out on the sidewalk with no real resources. (This debate has been covered with some differing viewpoints <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/downtown-st-louis-residents-criticize-city-say-homeless-problems-worsening/article_720384c9-9abe-5416-844a-d25bc19bebd4.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.stlamerican.com/news/columnists/guest_columnists/the-real-on-lyda-krewson-and-homelessness/article_dced55d0-e4e2-11e6-a262-177685b963ef.html" target="_blank">here</a>).<br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Minimum Wage</u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>Jones and French sparred a bit over minimum wage. Jones proudly boasts of having protested alongside <a href="http://fightfor15.org/" target="_blank">Fight for 15 </a>activists and cited her own role as a single mother to be a primary motivator for her passion on the topic. French said that he supported a state-level minimum wage increase but did not want to disadvantage the city by making increasing the wage city-wide only to have businesses flee. He then took a jab at Jones by saying that her staff in the Treasurer's office wasn't paid $15 an hour. She shot back that she immediately gave her staff a raise upon entering her position and pays all of her campaign staff $15 an hour.<br /><br />Elsewhere in the evening, minimum wage was discussed because both Boyd and Krewson were absent (in their roles as alderman and alderwoman) when the city-wide increase to $11 was implemented. Krewson noted that it was her amendment they were voting on, and she was there for the perfection vote, just not the final vote. Boyd first insisted that he was present for the vote, but the moderator insisted he was not. (I looked when I got home, and <a href="https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/city-laws/board-bills/votes/board-bill.cfm?bbid=9943" target="_blank">the record says he was there</a>. I let the organizers know that, and they responded back that they got their information from <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/st-louis-aldermen-push-forward-minimum-wage-hike-bill/article_037de184-57f4-55cd-bc12-95d14f9e5edb.html" target="_blank">this article</a>, which lists him among the absent voters.) He then said he would have voted yes and voted yes on the perfection vote. (French voted against it).<br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Cash Bail and Jail Conditions</u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>Jones made it clear that she wanted to end the cash bail system and proposed payment plans and community service alternatives as possible solutions that would keep people out of jails and from the snowballing issue of losing jobs, disrupting lives, etc. due to incarceration over minor offenses. She even said that people had taken their own lives because of the impact of the cash bail system.<br /><br />Boyd also stated his support for ending it, but his solution is ankle bracelets. The audience was vocally opposed, and the moderator followed up to ask if he was concerned about whether that was a liberty issue for someone who had committed a minor offense. He doubled down saying, "I'm not saying they have to wear short pants!" as if it is the visibility of the monitor and not its tracking mechanism that makes it invasive. It was a disturbing answer.<br /><br />On a somewhat related note, there was a question involving "The Workhouse," the medium security prison located in the city. Both French and Reed responded that it should not be closed. French pointed out that closing it would further overcrowd the jail; instead, he wants to issue a bond to raise funds for improvements like air conditioning. Reed said it should not be closed and that we should instead focus on prevention and treatment instead of incarceration. He did not, however, address the current conditions of the prison.<br /><br /><b><u><span style="color: orange;">City Development and Stadiums&nbsp;</span></u></b><br /><br />Development was a topic that wound its way through the debate consistently and often as a supplemental topic to unrelated questions. It seemed obvious that all of the candidates want their stance on development front and center and understand it to be an important drive for the campaign as a whole.<br /><br />Jones was very critical of TIF money and its past use and passionately laid out a plan to ensure development would be routed out of the central corridor and into the mostly-ignored north and south parts of the city. She also said that any development plan would have to have community benefit and living wage agreements and anything that didn't would be vetoed.<br /><br />Krewson also talked about her past experience in helping to develop The Loop area, specifically mentioning driving around with developers to show them potential properties they might not have considered on their own. She said that any development she approved would have to provide neighborhood services and meet minority participation requirements.<br /><br />The potential funding for a MLS stadium was discussed. Jones and French were both adamantly against it, both citing the myriad of other funding needs the city has. Reed was questioned somewhat critically for voting to put the MLS funding on the ballot, but he insisted that he didn't support the funds; he supported the voters having a say. He said he was always on the side of voter empowerment. He was then questioned over the (non-voter approved) use of $4 million for Scott Trade Center, but he didn't provide a real justification for that beyond the explanation that it was "different" from the MLS issue.<br /><br /><b><u><span style="color: orange;">City-County Merger</span></u></b><br /><b><u><span style="color: orange;"><br /></span></u></b>Jones voiced support for putting a city-county merger on the ballot and said that she personally would vote for it, but she also acknowledged that a lot of financial housekeeping had to take place before that vote would be feasible.<br /><br />French somewhat flippantly said that the county doesn't need a "91st municipality" and said that he had no interest in a merger, explaining there were other ways to cooperate without joining a county that hasn't shown progress on important issues like addressing inequality.<br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Marijuana Legalization</u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>All of the candidates voiced support for decriminalizing marijuana. French went further by saying that he would love to see it made legal in the state, and Jones--speaking immediately after him--took it up a notch by calling for taxation like Colorado to get tax revenue.<br /><br />Notably, Krewson added the phrase "of small amounts" to her statement to decriminalize it, and the audience noticed (and boo'ed).<br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Sanctuary City</u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>All of the candidates were adamant that St. Louis should be sanctuary city. French mentioned his involvement in the airport protest that sprung up this weekend following Trump's immigration ban. He said that we needed to be prepared to resist the Trump administration at this and other turns.<br /><br />Jones mentioned that she had been in touch with New York on the topic.<br /><br />Krewson was questioned about her statement in the pre-debate survey that she wouldn't risk federal funds to maintain status as a sanctuary city. She was pressed hard on it, and tried to wiggle out of it by saying, "but we shouldn't have to give up those funds to be a sanctuary city." Ultimately, she said that we should fight to keep the funds and the status, but she never gave a clear answer on which she would choose if both were not an option.<br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Policing and Police Shootings</u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>I saved this one for last because it was by far the biggest issue. It came up in different ways, and it was also the elephant in the room because--for the first half-hour or so of the debate (until they were told to stop, I assume)--there was a group of people who held up signs like this every time Krewson spoke.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cOYV6hDFdSM/WI6tyttxIXI/AAAAAAAAEpI/h2wGKP-AZ0YuZtS1wIFiIiDrPhVnUrqPgCLcB/s1600/IMG_6624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cOYV6hDFdSM/WI6tyttxIXI/AAAAAAAAEpI/h2wGKP-AZ0YuZtS1wIFiIiDrPhVnUrqPgCLcB/s320/IMG_6624.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Beyond the signs, the boos and cheers in the room showed a clear issue with the fact that Krewson received the endorsement of the SLPOA. The issue hung in the air for most of the debate, and Krewson fielded questions about policing by repeatedly focusing on funding for training. She also said that we need more police officers, saying that we need at least 1300 and only have about 1200. She connected training with staffing by saying training couldn't take place if everyone was overworked. When asked explicitly if training would include implicit bias training, she said yes. She also acknowledged her own white privilege and said "Black lives absolutely do matter."&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Later, though, her ties to the SLPOA were brought up more explicitly. She said that though she did not support Roorda, whose comments she admitted were racist, she did support the police officers. She said, "I can't control who they hire." When asked if she would ask Roorda to step down, she said that wasn't within her control. The audience booed loudly.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For contrast, Jones was asked why she didn't meet with SLPOA (the only candidate present who didn't), and she said it was because she had no interest in their endorsement or having anything to do with Roorda. She also demonstrated a difference with Krewson by saying that she would focus on placing social workers on staff to work with police instead of hiring more officers.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Tef Poe, local musician and activist, mocked Krewson's call for "training," a theme that French picked up on when he said that the people weren't asking for better training; they were asking for accountability. He said that there would not be trust between the citizens and the police until accountability was obvious. He also said that he supported community policing practices and wanted to move away from military tactical style training, a training style Reed also condemned. French also made it clear that firing police chief Sam Dotson would be a priority on "day one."&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Boyd cited several times that his own relative who was killed by police, but he also talked about black-on-black crime and the community needing to "take responsibility" for the shootings.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another point about policing was French's support for security cameras around the city, something he helped implant in his own North City ward. He emphasized that as a citizen, he wanted there to be footage to help solve crimes, and cited that 60% of the cities homicides go unsolved. He also mentioned that there are plenty of cameras downtown in areas that attract tourists; he believes neighborhoods should have the same security measures. He frequently mentioned a disparity between the midtown area and areas north and south, and this was another place where he sees that divide. Response times, he says, are slower to areas outside of midtown, and it needs to be corrected.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Some Other Stuff&nbsp;</u></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of mention are some issues that were more personal and less policy-driven.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Reed fired some nasty shots at both Jones and Boyd while trying to cast himself as the anti-Slay candidate. He said that he was the only one who had been brave enough to run against Slay in the past, and then he accused Jones of hiring Slay's campaign team (and why wouldn't she? After all, they ran a winning campaign.) before getting <i>really</i>&nbsp;angry with Boyd for handing out campaign literature supporting Slay during the previous election.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Jones responded that her father runs her campaign, and then Boyd shot back with a fiery "how dare you tell me who to support" before calling out Reed for not having integrity and lying to the alderman board. The two men duked it out for a bit, and though it was fiery and passionate, it seemed to be getting into the weeds in what they did or didn't do for one another in their professional relationship rather than stick to an issue the voters should be concerned with. It did make for an entertaining couple minutes, though.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Jones was asked about <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/treasurer-tishaura-jones-defends-frequent-travel-on-taxpayer-dime/article_f7d707ec-622c-52b6-8cdd-41b145622165.html" target="_blank">the controversy</a> surrounding her use of funds for travel and a city-issued vehicle. She explained that she traveled to trainings that allowed her to make direct changes to the city. She also said that she had saved the city $5 million dollars (I think in conjunction with her implementation of the parking meters, but I'm not certain) because of the things she had learned. She said that she would "take advantage of every perk" offered with her position as long as it allowed her to do a good job.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Krewson was obviously in front of a hostile crowd. She is the least progressive candidate in a room filled with progressive voters. She tried to address the issue a few times, but it often fell flat. She insisted we were in "Missour-ah" drawing out the alternate pronunciation intentionally. To what end? I can't say because it certainly felt divisive. She also answered a heckling "Can I live on your street?!" with a folksy "You betcha" that didn't help the tension. While she did directly acknowledge her racial privilege, the room as a whole did not seem satisfied, and I often felt like she was giving her answers with a remote audience in mind rather than trying to win the votes in front of her.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><span style="color: orange;">My Takeaway</span></u></b></div><br />It's no secret that I am progressive and want progressive policies in my city. Going into this debate, I was undecided. Jones and French were at the top of my list, but I hadn't ruled out voting for someone else. I was particularly interested in hearing from Krewson because she is the best funded and the frontrunner.<br /><br />After reading the pre-debate responses and listening to this debate, I am voting for Jones.<br /><br />Boyd doesn't seem to be a serious candidate, and he answered too many questions with platitudes. He was even asked a question that was basically "You've lost three city-wide races already and are only polling at 5%. Why not drop out instead of taking votes away from someone else?" and responded with "Quitters never win and winners never quit." Perhaps, but he's not winning. Nothing he said tonight made me think otherwise.<br /><br />Reed gave some good answers, but I think his attack of Boyd and Jones over their relationship to Slay made him look insecure and petty. It wasn't a focused moment. Generally, his best answers were only equally good as another candidates, and his worst answers were, well, worse. Nothing he said made him stand out to me as a particularly good choice. He also did not <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6z0hlhyX1g" target="_blank">adequately address his controversy</a> over the sexist comments against alderwoman Megan Green.<br /><br />Krewson seemed to be, as I mentioned earlier, addressing a different audience. She did not handle the questions about her police endorsement well, and she certainly had to know they were coming considering who sponsored this event. I was disappointed in how she handled it. I also wanted a stronger answer from her about the sanctuary city status, especially considering she was giving this response today, immediately following Trump's horrendous anti-immigrant actions.<br /><br />French gave a lot of good answers, and I like his policies. He, however, doubled down on his cocky response that he "regrets nothing" he's ever done in his political career, which was off putting.<br /><br />French and Jones share a lot of the same ideology and plans, but Jones was much clearer and more focused when it came to implementation. She had detailed plans for every initiative, and she handled herself like someone with experience and political skills. She seemed confident, passionate, and clear. I got the impression that she would step into the role of mayor with an immediate and actionable plan for the city, and I liked it.<br /><br />That's why she is going to get my vote.<br /><br />The bottom line, though, is that I was <i>thrilled</i>&nbsp;to see such a big turnout, and I hope we pack the polling stations in March.<br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/01/mayoral-debate-summary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-2471554159048082443Sat, 07 Jan 2017 00:36:00 +00002017-01-06T18:36:23.410-06:00echo chambersmedianewsrhetoricsocial mediateachingTeaching Research and Writing in the Age of "Fake News" It's almost hard for me to imagine it now, but growing up, I never watched the news. It was never on in my house. I remember taking "current event" quizzes in my history class and feeling completely disconnected from the world. I only heard of the topics in the few minutes we spent before each class naming some things going on at the moment. <br /><br />This is still the state of things in the house where I grew up. My mom doesn't watch, read, or listen to the news. She gets her knowledge of current events from snippets of conversation with the people she works with (and me and my little brother, who frequently go on political rants). When I ask her why, she suggests that the news stresses her out, feels overwhelming, doesn't really add value to her life. <br /><br />I've been hanging out in some "minimalist" groups online, and--while definitional battles abound--one of the core principles is to remove things that don't add value to your life and to simplify what remains. Perhaps, then, it shouldn't have taken me so off guard today when someone in one of these groups asked if people had cut news media out of their lives as part of their minimalist principles. Many, many people chimed in to say they had done exactly that. <br /><br />It kind of startled me. <br /><br />Several commenters immediately connected their rejection of news to the "fake news" epidemic. Unfortunately, I have now seen that label applied haphazardly to any news that the assessor doesn't like, not just the content that is in fact completely fabricated by its author for clicks and revenue. This label has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/us/politics/fake-news-claims-conservatives-mainstream-media-.html?_r=0">given people like Rush Limbaugh</a> a new tool in a right-wing attempt to dismantle and disrupt news media.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5jO_c1DG_bM/WHAxVeM2qjI/AAAAAAAAEog/oA_OucVoU1AR0hPhTAP8n62VnnjqyF4fQCLcB/s1600/475465835_e2847e3c29_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5jO_c1DG_bM/WHAxVeM2qjI/AAAAAAAAEog/oA_OucVoU1AR0hPhTAP8n62VnnjqyF4fQCLcB/s320/475465835_e2847e3c29_z.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div><br /><br />I got in a heated Facebook debate with an uncle who chastised my little brother for sharing "fake news" when he posted about <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/court-police-can-shoot-dog-if-it-moves-or-barks-when-cop-enters-home/article/2610097">the recent ruling that gave police a lot of latitude if they made the choice to shoot someone's pet.</a> Admittedly, my brother had shared this information from a click-baity site with a headline designed to be inflammatory and an obvious agenda against expanding police authoritarianism. However, the presence of bias and even a lack of journalist ethical standards does not make something "fake." When I linked my uncle to more legitimate news sources reporting on the case and eventually to the actual court ruling itself in an attempt to demonstrate it was not "fake," he responded by saying that it just didn't feel real to him. That was the end of the discussion. "Feelings" replace facts, journalistic integrity, and multiple sources (including a primary document). <br /><br />I'm a community college English instructor, and I taught research writing for the first time in a long time last semester. Many of my students (online students, many enrolled in other colleges and universities who had theoretically been educated in media literacy) reported having no idea how to determine if a source was valid or not. Seeing how uncomfortable my students are with critically analyzing media and applying media literacy principles to their own thinking and writing made me realize that these issues go far beyond the Facebook rants of my elder relatives. The landscape of information is universally overwhelming, and people like me (as a professor of rhetoric) are responsible for helping make it less so.<br /><br />I think that there are a lot of factors in the mix right now that could make turning away from news media attractive: the political climate is toxic, we're very polarized and human nature tends to make us want to consume news that supports our own views, the sheer number of sources available at our fingertips is overwhelming, and the pay structure for journalism has become so dysfunctional as to make even some otherwise ethical institutions turn to some rather questionable practices. <br /><br />It's coupled with a turn away from experts and expertise. We're reacting to information overload by trying to simplify and condense what there is to process. I think that's an understandable reaction, but we're doing it (as we do all things) within the confines of our own social conditioning and prejudices. The result is that we pick and choose what makes us feel comfortable and filter out the rest, leaving us with a very narrow worldview and the option to reject anything at any time if it happens to conflict with whatever general framework we've aligned ourselves with at the moment. <br /><br />In other words, our desire for stability and simplicity as individuals has led to chaos and confusion as a collective.<div><br /></div><div>National Geographic has <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text" target="_blank">an interesting post</a> about this anti-science phenomenon that asks why it seems that "doubters have declared war on the consensus of experts."&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Author Joel Achenbach makes a lot of smart observations, including this one about the risk that we take to our identity when aligning ourselves with particular beliefs:&nbsp;</div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Americans fall into two basic camps, Kahan says. Those with a more “egalitarian” and “communitarian” mind-set are generally suspicious of industry and apt to think it’s up to something dangerous that calls for government regulation; they’re likely to see the risks of climate change. In contrast, people with a “hierarchical” and “individualistic” mind-set respect leaders of industry and don’t like government interfering in their affairs; they’re apt to reject warnings about climate change, because they know what accepting them could lead to—some kind of tax or regulation to limit emissions.&nbsp;</i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>In the U.S., climate change somehow has become a litmus test that identifies you as belonging to one or the other of these two antagonistic tribes. When we argue about it, Kahan says, we’re actually arguing about who we are, what our crowd is. We’re thinking, People like us believe this. People like that do not believe this. For a hierarchical individualist, Kahan says, it’s not irrational to reject established climate science: Accepting it wouldn’t change the world, but it might get him thrown out of his tribe.</i></blockquote>He also notes some of the more obvious reasons that people are finding it easier and easier to establish their own parameters around "truth," namely that the internet has removed the gatekeeping institutions that used to determine which information was widely disseminated.<br /><br />I agree with his claims and conclusions, but I don't think they're quite complete. He briefly mentions distrust of corporations when he discusses people's reluctance to accept GMOs as safe, but I think that corporate influence deserves a much closer look. We've been socially trained to "follow the money" and figure out how economic interests might influence someone's perspective. When we do that in a world <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2007/oct/sciences-worst-enemy-private-funding" target="_blank">where corporations are funding the research about their own fields</a>, our skepticism is more than understood--it's responsible.<br /><br />Furthermore, I know several people with left-leaning political ideals who have a dogmatic adherence to the scientific method in a way that operates as a blind spot. Yes, the scientific method is a wonderful tool to help us ascertain truths that are free from human bias, but the reporting of those findings and even the decision to research them in the first place is just as tangled in bias as everything else. We have awfully short memories if we want to pretend that science has not been used as a tool to further political agendas. Just consider how phrenology was used to justify racism or how homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the DSM. And these approaches are <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-9-most-influential-works-of-scientific-racism-rank-1575543279" target="_blank">far from old and dead</a>.<br /><br />Also, many of the "anti-science" people I know are not actually anti-science when the new scientific findings fit their existing beliefs. I've met several people who reject any scientific evidence that vaccines do not cause autism or that climate change is manmade but who are quick to adopt new scientific evidence about the early development of a fetus as part of an anti-abortion rhetoric. This suggests to me that defending science for science's sake isn't going to be the answer to this riddle.<br /><br />There's a part of me (the part that has researched rhetoric across centuries) that feels a kind of optimism about everything. That part thinks that we're in the midst of a rather predictable upheaval surrounding notions of truth in the face of massive technological advancements and changes to human communication. That part of me has read about the pendulum swings that have followed every technological revolution to communication (the advent of writing, the printing press, open access education). Things will settle. They always do.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pEEBf5GhMzE/WHAx6H2mx6I/AAAAAAAAEok/-e4bCI6sJ1kpU45q8E4YNZDQQ-J5ws5XwCLcB/s1600/8061898175_2c62740f62_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pEEBf5GhMzE/WHAx6H2mx6I/AAAAAAAAEok/-e4bCI6sJ1kpU45q8E4YNZDQQ-J5ws5XwCLcB/s320/8061898175_2c62740f62_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />But that's kind of the coward's answer, isn't it? After all, things don't just "settle" on their own. They settle with the work of the people of those times (the thinkers, the writers, the scientists, the artists, the philosophers) to reign the pendulum back in. People work from either side to pull it back until the swing is manageable and less disruptive, until the next advancement can throw it back into wild motion and it's someone else's turn to do that work.<br /><br />And it's my turn now, right? I mean, it is literally my job to teach people how to tell what sources they can trust and figure out how to use them in conjunction with their own perspectives to make ethical, informed decisions and disseminations.<br /><br />It's hard, though. I suspect that it has always been hard, but I think that those of us who are trying to teach research and writing skills in today's climate have a particularly and uniquely challenging task.<br /><br />In a very interesting and important post, Danah Boyd at NYU <a href="https://points.datasociety.net/did-media-literacy-backfire-7418c084d88d#.awagfap1v" target="_blank">asks if media literacy has backfired</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Understanding what sources to trust is a basic tenet of media literacy education. When educators encourage students to focus on sourcing quality information, they encourage them to critically ask who is publishing the content. Is the venue a respected outlet? What biases might the author have? The underlying assumption in all of this is that there’s universal agreement that major news outlets like the New York Times, scientific journal publications, and experts with advanced degrees are all highly trustworthy.</i>&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Think about how this might play out in communities where the “liberal media” is viewed with disdain as an untrustworthy source of information…or in those where science is seen as contradicting the knowledge of religious people…or where degrees are viewed as a weapon of the elite to justify oppression of working people. Needless to say, not everyone agrees on what makes a trusted source.</i>&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Students are also encouraged to reflect on economic and political incentives that might bias reporting. Follow the money, they are told. Now watch what happens when they are given a list of names of major power players in the East Coast news media whose names are all clearly Jewish. Welcome to an opening for anti-Semitic ideology.</i></blockquote>What her post makes clear to me (and I hope you will read the whole thing and supplemental links at the bottom) is that media literacy cannot be introduced as a concept in a class with basic principles and then built upon slowly over time. We do not have the luxury of a stepping stone approach to teaching media literacy because teaching only the basic principles is a liability. Students have too many influences on their attention and ideas for educators to pretend that what they learn from us will stay pristine and safe until we meet again next class period, next semester, next year. If we want media literacy to work as an educational tool, we have to go ahead and pull back the curtain and show its messy, chaotic reality from the very beginning. We need to admit that it's not easy. The rules aren't always clear cut, and we need to create assignments that allow for that mess.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pFmBXkRUwUw/WHAydXvcSUI/AAAAAAAAEow/1yBfnZOdkfUUZs7rVVm2sm7cLAIytB3VwCLcB/s1600/156890552_6bcd1c7c4d_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pFmBXkRUwUw/WHAydXvcSUI/AAAAAAAAEow/1yBfnZOdkfUUZs7rVVm2sm7cLAIytB3VwCLcB/s320/156890552_6bcd1c7c4d_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />I was trying to identify the core ideas I want my students to take away from my class, ideas they can apply in a variety of frameworks and ideologies to make their own thoughts (and hopefully the world around them) clearer, better informed, and more solidly supported. Here's what I came up with:<br /><br /><br /><ul><li><b>Biased Does Not Mean Untrue</b>- This might seem like a bad precedent to set. A lot of the composition textbooks I've seen teach identifying bias as a way to figure out if a source is credible or not. Often, it is simplified (intentionally or not) as "biased=unusable." I understand how this could be a good starting point for a discussion about credibility, but the reality is that every single source of information available is "biased" in one way or another. Even a completely fact-based report was chosen as a headline over some other fact-based incident. If we tell our students that they can't use a biased source while they're simultaneously hearing that all of the sources around them are biased (from our class and elsewhere), they're left with very few options. Instead, we need to teach that bias must be identified and accounted for, but it doesn't make a source unusable. Information found in an obviously biased source should be verified more carefully. It should be included in a paper with some sense of balance and a clear identification of its bias, but it can be read, it can be used, and most importantly, it can be <i>true</i>.&nbsp;</li></ul><br /><br /><ul><li><b>Stop Hating on Wikipedia</b>- I don't let my students use Wikipedia as a source in their papers, but I tell them to use Wikipedia as a working bibliography that links to other sources. I also tell them that it's fine to use as a starting place to generate ideas or to find out some basic information about a topic before determining whether they want to research it further. Many of them are absolutely shocked when I say this because they've been told over and over again that Wikipedia and "real research" never overlap. But we all know that plenty of information on Wikipedia <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/10/19/science-shows-wikipedia-is-the-best-part-of-the-internet/?utm_term=.13ed7bbeb8c8" target="_blank">is valid and informative</a>. If we teach students to reject all information on Wikipedia outright and they then go and see good information on Wikipedia, we're helping to create a culture where good information is rejected. Yes, Wikipedia (and many other open source sites on the web) are problematic and tricky to use well, but let's just go ahead and embrace that conflict and tension from the beginning.&nbsp;</li></ul><br /><br /><ul><li><b>Including the "Other Side" Is More than a Cursory Paragraph-</b>&nbsp;One habit that students are picking up as a direct result of media literacy is to include a paragraph (sometimes two) showing the "other side." This often leads to choppy, disconnected information included in a perfunctory way without any real reflection on what it means for the author's own argument. It's a troubling habit that is being reflected in legitimate news sources all the time as they attempt to appear "fair and balanced" in an increasingly politicized world. But balance isn't a given. Some things don't have an equally valid counterpoint. Teaching students to hunt for one and then drop it into their papers (whether that's what we meant to teach or not) isn't helping anything. This <a href="http://believingscience.blogspot.com/2015/09/todays-logical-fallacy-is-balance.html" target="_blank">balance fallacy</a>&nbsp;has to be addressed, and it means that when students investigate the "other side," they're necessarily going to have to also investigate the validity and weight of those viewpoints.&nbsp;</li></ul><br />I think that these goals in my classroom all reflect one underlying principle: be straightforward and upfront about the chaos and messiness of research and writing. It's only natural to want to present things concisely for students, especially when we're required to evaluate what they produce. We want set standards and hard boundaries. If we teach at an entry level, we reason that students will get more advanced media literacy standards elsewhere, in higher level classes. We do these things in an attempt to make a very difficult topic more manageable for our students, but I think we do them a disservice. If we really want to provide them the tools they need to navigate a messy world, we need to admit its messiness from the very beginning. It might be harder, it might be more frustrating, but it will ultimately serve our students much better in the long run--and that serves us all.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/garyth123/475465835/in/photolist-J1TqP-Gsr1T-cNsC9s-8g6yaA-jb3rpo-cNsCmE-dRpFve-po4fL-3JCcYM-4CiAc8-5dwie9-9WDc71-2uxm9t-3T3L-59B1wt-65Cr1A-mLgVw-4xwSZe-3Fha-d7EAi-5TA6bb-raCui2-4WHtR5-6Swdeh-5xKAfD-ayGZwq-8tKV-7ZSFGe-aKdU2-ayGZHy-dMG41-4p4VfT-4KDLi9-LDyAc-Ddbqw-28sSK-2HRe-wkec-ayZtHj-5nSpUW-7pDTVH-8LTZjb-3o2uH5-EbcaC-4gBs6x-4tXFfG-ayGkBN-8kXM7-8kXFD-8kXL7" target="_blank">Gary Thompson</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robinmalik/8061898175/in/photolist-dhpksp-5NbG5N-4G6GbQ-dhpkrn-5VNMt7-7hhsWg-8acEca-9XpcSc-aPz9X6-agCroS-dr2Qw7-h3cAue-f8RGV-h3cQvE-qzHKgN-8MNcgg-54v7Zs-dZYJFs-auE5y1-egVsdA-bgcwnH-qKS9uS-qJjbuy-dHfFf4-g6aYhV-r23Uru-jwnLwA-7Sky7u-ec16gp-8KT8hf-h3dMxc-bNw9mp-6GgxAY-485e5u-f8RHu-imWci-t2TUy-6v3Qhr-mUPq63-pJLvQ7-oFwz8n-oXKYh8-trs7e1-7Q6L9v-gc7kzM-5XCGJb-sdA7qY-69Tpx2-bwvgnt-sEijBe" target="_blank">Robin Malik</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sharynmorrow/156890552/in/photolist-ruWAfT-6zQNQc-6zQNMF-eS76w-6zQNP8-eS77H" target="_blank">Sharyn Morrow</a></span><br /><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="487ef" data-offset-key="f05dh-0-0" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'San Francisco', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.23999999463558197px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></div></div></div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2017/01/teaching-research-and-writing-in-age-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-8516072922976218742Fri, 23 Dec 2016 22:50:00 +00002016-12-23T16:50:55.273-06:00academiabloggingcommunity collegeresearchteachingwritingResearching as a Community College Professor I've got a post up over at the University of Toronto Press blog about researching as a community college professor (it was written in conjunction with an article I published on how narratives of fitness and feminism conflict, which is <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/article/631102" target="_blank">available here from Project Muse</a>).<br /><br />Here's an excerpt from the blog:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>See, I didn’t “need” to do research. As a full-time faculty member at a community college, my career trajectory is not welded to scholarship the way it would have been had I pursued a career teaching in a four-year institution. There is no “publish or perish” mandate hanging over my head. While scholarship is celebrated among my colleagues, it is not necessarily expected. What is expected instead are acts much more directly related to the day-to-day function of a community college professor: committee memberships, innovative course design, service to the community, and a substantial teaching load.</i>&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Without the direct incentives and expectations to do independent scholarly research, community college professors face additional external hurdles of time constraints and internal hurdles of motivation. It is the latter that I would like to address here.</i></blockquote><br />If you want to read the full post, you can <a href="http://blog.utpjournals.com/2016/12/16/finding-motivation-to-research-as-community-college-faculty/" target="_blank">check it out here</a>.http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/12/researching-as-community-college.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-507638914607650476Sat, 03 Dec 2016 03:14:00 +00002016-12-02T21:14:03.972-06:00activismhousekeepingminimalismphilosophyreligionMinimalism, Peace, and Time for Fighting Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with my blog has probably seen me complaining about housekeeping. It's been a regular feature stretching back over the years here. I've mused about the gender divide in housekeeping and how it <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2012/05/fine-print-negotiations-in-marriages.html" target="_blank">impacts negotiations in equally shared parenting</a>. I've wondered about <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2013/06/can-you-be-good-at-housecleaning.html" target="_blank">seeing housekeeping as a skill</a> and the gendered ramifications of positioning it as such. I've even written about my attempts to rid myself of this personal struggle through professional means including <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/03/what-i-learned-by-hiring-professional.html" target="_blank">hiring a professional organizer</a> and seeing a therapist (with whom I then got into a <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/04/i-broke-up-with-my-therapist-over.html" target="_blank">partnership-ending fight about whether or not housekeeping could be a problem</a>).<br /><br />Now, these problems are not gone, but I have found the first thing in my entire adult life that seems to be making a difference: minimalism.<br /><br />I got introduced to minimalism as a <i>movement</i>&nbsp;when someone (I can't even remember who) told me to listen to <a href="http://www.theminimalists.com/podcast/" target="_blank"><i>The Minimalists </i>podcast</a>. The Minimalists are the collective name for a pair of men who left corporate jobs at the age of 30 and have built a pretty significant online following discussing principles of minimalism to simplify and better your life. Their work has been shared through the aforementioned podcasts, live tours, <a href="http://www.theminimalists.com/books/" target="_blank">books</a>, and <a href="https://minimalismfilm.com/" target="_blank">a movie</a>.<br /><br />At its core, minimalism is pretty simple: pare down the excess from your life so that you have room for what matters.<br /><br />In practice, this often leads to tips about getting rid of things you already own, buying less, living in smaller houses, and even (as the Minimalists did) downsizing things like career and relationships.<br /><br />I've listened to several of their podcasts, and though I often disagree with some of what they say, a lot of it is insightful and inspiring. I'm particularly drawn to the advice that seems to overlap with finding your purpose and making room for life's passions.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8pC6Hd2gt9Q/WEIr1v5nsLI/AAAAAAAAEn0/hPgiVBRslI81W6Ig1LvtXT76HaIV1LOQACLcB/s1600/7000246302_fa25dfaed3_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8pC6Hd2gt9Q/WEIr1v5nsLI/AAAAAAAAEn0/hPgiVBRslI81W6Ig1LvtXT76HaIV1LOQACLcB/s320/7000246302_fa25dfaed3_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />This is where I should pause and tell you something else about myself. In addition to finding housekeeping overwhelming to the point of needing therapy, there are some other personality quirks that I've either acquired or came hard-wired with at birth.<br /><br />I hate small talk. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I don't want to chit-chat with people about things that neither of us really care about. This description of <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/banning-small-talk" target="_blank">a small talk-free party</a> that went around earlier this year sounded like heaven to me. Want to tell me about your favorite place to shop? What you're going to eat for brunch tomorrow? I'll smile politely while feeling like small animals are trying to burrow out of my throat because I have no idea what to say when it's my turn. Want to talk to me about whether or not you think God is real? How you perceive corruption in the criminal justice system? If political parties can be united across an urban-rural divide? Exhale. Now we're in comfortable territory.<br /><br />I also hate tasks that I know, logically, are no big deal. I <i>hate</i>&nbsp;having to stop and get gas. Right now, there is a package slip for a package I have to go pick up from the post office sitting in my dining room, and it feels like a ticking bomb. I bring books to read in the ten minutes I wait in line to pick my daughter up from school. I can't stand downtime. It makes me feel itchy and sick to my stomach.<br /><br />I've read analyses of these quirks in terms of personality "typing" (an INFJ, if you're the sort who cares about that kind of thing). They say that it maps onto a very goal-driven persona that cares &nbsp;about broad and deep topics that impact humanity. I've also read about them in terms of mental health disorders (anxiety, if you're the sort who cares about that kind of thing). They say that it maps onto defective brain chemistry that makes me unhealthy. Whatever the case, I've come to understand that these things are a deep-seated part of who I am. Bane or boon, I will always feel like my feet have been set on fire when I have to wait in line for more than three minutes, and I will spend every get-to-know-you chat awkwardly trying to remember the other person's name while internally wishing we were discussing whether or not death is a final state of being.<br /><br />The more I listened to The Minimalists, the better I could articulate my problem with housekeeping. It's not the actual work that bothers me. I don't mind physical labor or menial tasks. I have done plenty of both in my life, both for pay and not. The reason that housekeeping (and other generally domestic tasks) sends me into a spiral is that it has no finality. I am deeply, deeply goal oriented. Often those goals are lofty and <i>years</i>&nbsp;away, but they are there.<br /><br />That's not the case with the dishes. The dishes will never be done. They will always come back. The floor will always get dirty again, often moments after I have cleaned it. This was also the source of a lot of the <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/08/a-copy-of-copy-of-copy-postpartum.html" target="_blank">postpartum anxiety I experienced</a> while staying home with my kids during my maternity leave. I <i>loved</i>&nbsp;spending time with them. I did not love the never-ending string of chores with no finish line. The diapers went in the bin, in the laundry, folded, in the bin, in the laundry, folded, in the bin, in the laundry, folded . . . and I felt trapped. As the tasks piled on top of one another, they felt like bricks closing in on me. It was the Cask of Amontillado, but I was my own captor, having imprisoned myself in an endless, self-replicating to-do list.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q0uG8gi7ktw/WEIsgnwaPUI/AAAAAAAAEn4/P2n14beA6f0iKJZBrvFltyrfJzLxRauVwCLcB/s1600/15005480981_849813a717_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q0uG8gi7ktw/WEIsgnwaPUI/AAAAAAAAEn4/P2n14beA6f0iKJZBrvFltyrfJzLxRauVwCLcB/s320/15005480981_849813a717_z.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So back to minimalism. I had, in a fit of desperation, previously used the Marie Kondo advice to purge my home of several useless or outdated items, but I didn't know how to prevent their return. The Minimalists were basing their philosophy in the same basic place Kondo did: keep what brings you joy, ditch what doesn't.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Joy, though, is a weird motivator for me, and by that I mean it doesn't particularly motivate me in the long-term. Don't get me wrong. I have lots of moments of joy, and I hope to have many, many more, but what gets me up in the morning (and too often keeps me up at night) is not worrying how to be happy; it is worrying how to make a difference--in my discipline, in projecting my values, in my career, in the world.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I won't get off on too much of a tangent (tangent? me? never!), but <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-is-healthier-than-happiness/278250/" target="_blank">this article about happiness vs. meaning</a> takes a look at this pretty well.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So I kept feeling partially motivated by these discussions and then having them fall hollow.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I decided to join a few "minimalist" groups on Facebook, and something interesting happened.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">First of all, I want to say that these groups are full of lovely, helpful, kind people. The conversations I see are almost always genuinely rooted in wanting to help one another out for no external motivation other than knowing that we're in a shared condition and have experiences that others could value. What I am about to say about these groups is in no way meant as a criticism of what the people (mostly women, which I'll talk about in a minute) are doing there. The spaces they've created serve a clear purpose, and it's even a purpose that I find helpful for myself and plan to continue visiting. But they didn't provide me the answers I was looking for, and so I am still searching.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For one, these groups are almost entirely made up of women. I think this might be true of Facebook community pages in general. I've read lots of theories on this: women use Facebook more, women are more likely to seek out collective answers, women are more likely to be home and have access to the computer. Whatever the case, these are female-centric (and more often than not stay-at-home-mom-centric) spaces. I feel that's probably connected to my next observation.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Secondly, the version of minimalism that gets the most attention in these groups is one that often gets intertwined with (and perhaps conflated with) concepts like tidiness and frugality. Most of the women posting seem primarily motivated to take up "minimalism" as a way to save money or make their homes meet a certain "clean" and "modern" aesthetic standard.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I want to stress again that I think there is <i>absolutely nothing&nbsp;wrong with</i>&nbsp;wanting to save money or create a home that reflects your aesthetic tastes. These are absolutely valid reasons to join a Facebook group of like-minded supporters and gather tips and advice. There are tons of Facebook groups specifically about both of those things, and the "minimalism" layer to it just helps to separate out the specific type of aesthetic and money-saving techniques one might be seeking.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is another more insidious trend in these groups, though, and this one I<i> am</i> pointing to with a critical eye: some people seem to think that because their decorating and money saving endeavors are "minimalist" that they are somehow morally superior choices.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sxxyT-WTks4/WEIxuvBIt5I/AAAAAAAAEoI/--tS7g6RGQYf-1CL2Gy9G99-kCouLZkpgCLcB/s1600/1474060490_4ce83e7ebd_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sxxyT-WTks4/WEIxuvBIt5I/AAAAAAAAEoI/--tS7g6RGQYf-1CL2Gy9G99-kCouLZkpgCLcB/s320/1474060490_4ce83e7ebd_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a high horse. Get it? Get it?!</td></tr></tbody></table>Unpacking all of this (and still personally trying to figure out why minimalism kept tugging at me while not quite finding what I was looking for in these groups and explorations) made me think about the connection of morality to minimalist principles.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div>The Minimalists have <a href="http://www.theminimalists.com/religion/" target="_blank">a post on the topic</a> of religion (certainly not the only source of morality, but <i>a </i>source of morality) and minimalism. They muse that several people have written them praising them for walking the correct path of [insert chosen religion]. People have inaccurately identified them to be Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim. They, for what it's worth, say that they each have very different personal religious beliefs but both find minimalism to have "nothing to do with religion; instead, it was a reaction to the discontentment we experienced after being steeped in consumerism for three decades."</div><div><br /></div><div>So they root their path in a secular adherence to anti-consumerism, and that's fair enough, but their readers aren't just imagining the religious undercurrent to their message. Minimalist principles are well-represented in a variety of religious and spiritual places (as <a href="http://www.missminimalist.com/2011/09/minimalism-and-religion/" target="_blank">another minimalist blogger</a> briefly explores here). Philosophical approaches like asceticism and stoicism also have minimalist cores.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>To place minimalism in conversation with the particular strain of consumerism bred from American capitalism is fine, but I find it much more interesting to trace it through a host of moments separated by religion, geography, and time. Minimalism seems to be much more universal and deep when examined through the lens of historical interaction with codes of morality and philosophy.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>And the thing is that minimalism is not, for most of those philosophical and religious approaches, an end game. It's a means to an end. One does not rid one's self of worldly possessions for the sake of having empty shelves or being able to win a competition to see who can fill the most trash bags to send to Goodwill. The ridding of the things is a very early step in the process toward creating a life filled with more important calls upon the energy that previously went into coveting, purchasing, and maintaining those things. When that goal overlaps with moral codes, it is often a way to make space for religious reading, committing acts of faith and service, and otherwise giving one's self to the world.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><i>That</i>&nbsp;is why I continue to be drawn to minimalism. I have used the very practical and pragmatic tips to get my house clean and purge it of unnecessary clutter so that it stays that way, and it's wonderful, but it's not wonderful because I can post pictures of my clean sink and feel accomplished. It's wonderful because now instead of dreading doing the dishes, I can spend that time reading <i>The New Jim Crow</i>&nbsp;and thinking about what I can do to fight a corrupt criminal justice system. The time I spent stuffing clothes into a drawer only to have them explode all over the floor the next time I needed to get dressed can now be spent having meaningful conversations with like-minded friends about the local political races coming up in my city and how we can mobilize to get people to the polls. Instead of spending thirty minutes procrastinating about the task, twenty minutes actually cleaning out my car, and another fifteen minutes pouting about having had to do it, I can now plan a better lesson for my students.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I would say that it allows me more time to spend dancing with my daughter or reading to my son, but the truth is that I made time for those things already. What was suffering, instead, was my sense of fulfilling my purpose in life, a purpose that I fulfill through my career and my activist work.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't think that makes me any better than the people who turn to minimalism as a way to make their house Pinterest-perfect (and I'll admit that I enjoy looking at their pictures and find them calming and inspiring). Even though I'm trying to align my personal moral code with these actions, I am not claiming a moral high ground in doing so.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>It's simply that, for me, virtually every action I take has to be connected to the longer term goal or I won't do it (or will dread doing it so much that it consumes me). By understanding the task of maintaining the domestic sphere as a means to a more activist and philosophical end, I have finally made it (not easy but) manageable, and I have minimalism (even as it enjoys its pop culture moment) to thank for that.<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/7000246302/in/photolist-bEA6kL-bpVEut-wjoxY-e9Yach-e9SgCe-e9S5RF-e9Y3g3-e9Y9bh-e9XLWj-e9XMEL-5LG6Ym-e9S3FH-e9XNLd-e9YjSb-e9XSNN-dM6X6A-9z9JHM-HCyBpc-8Krqos-j8nw3x-bGJU8K-4XsajW-6cjYrb-5m1rUF-8zbkpQ-6DNwAU-2Ba1MK-cwV1ys-e9Sstx-e9XY3j-9zcGQh-6dPdtc-e9Y2n7-e9Y7NJ-deK58N-e9SCSB-e9S4TV-e9Sjer-e9Sr8z-e9Soxt-e9SBjM-FiTYqw-e9S4hR-e9SARM-e9S1Xe-e9SiGF-e9XXuL-e9XMiJ-9z9S4Z-33ABVX" target="_blank">John Keogh</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/salimbasar/15005480981/in/photolist-oRZ1Hk-ekm4BJ-c3Gnmh-6LzqbW-wn37L3-wJgxGZ-xEiwRw-b19X1r-FNN6JE-mR1WLc-dHvykz-8Aok52-8iQSQq-cUsnMo-nXWStp-gFSVbS-9GZddz-adcBzs-rzjB8N-abmUVW-anTjdH-iJUiJZ-fcjTTB-9gmR8B-ay7iLb-oNDwUH-qZ92dE-bx9Wzq-oM25aS-fibZ1Y-qS3qb3-nZ3Jek-dJnahL-pHjXgy-9aHoHe-cnNk6y-7H75RV-86uMiV-ow324Q-a2Nk7C-8ZPE7Z-8kogEf-8EPWvs-8Htgne-a5x4iK-gity9r-dVzmm4-ah4pAz-gRzP4J-9ooo6K" target="_blank">salimbasar</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoom-in-tight/1474060490/in/photolist-3ffWQ3-9NNr4K-oiq9cF-amQ1Bg-4LajDe-amTk7Y-6BRF2V-qED9CR-ndWHG2-nRvec8-ed2h4F-7cWUra-rAcKuW-n92qif-n8ZasX-93HGpW-6dD78J-8aPvMV-dmZRf7-8b2syy-ece1Y1-ae6XgA-4k266T-nPne8v-gydgo3-amTk8S-846mVy-oufzqn-bZYDgq-qKahDt-smtnkP-5GXZ6g-9rrp8e-5LMMBW-amQ1At-e8i7JX-pe7Fyj-n8UtyB-fDPu19-8SGpx5-asXriE-eiekoH-4kKZcZ-rYDwnw-n78npu-prNhdC-pzhfxD-nqegmH-ohxAT7-o9eAsE" target="_blank">zoom in tight</a>,</span></div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/12/minimalism-peace-and-time-for-fighting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-4457429273111384124Sat, 26 Nov 2016 19:18:00 +00002016-11-26T14:02:05.331-06:00american dreamgilmore girlspop culturetelevisionWhat Gilmore Girls Teaches Us About Passion and DreamsI was among those looking forward to <i>Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life</i>&nbsp;with great excitement. But I was also looking forward with tempered expectations. I didn't expect the reboot to be able to capture the magic of the original series, and I don't think I was wrong. (Spoilers for the entire <i>A Year in the Life</i>&nbsp;from here on out). I was disappointed with some of the delivery (what was with that forever-long musical sequence, for instance?), and I was left perplexed by those last four words, but that's not my central focus in this response.<br /><br />The four, ninety-minute episodes had a lot to love. The characters felt mostly true to their development, and I didn't feel like the actors were phoning it in. There were plenty of moments tucked in with clear appreciation for the fan base (hello, Mr. Kim!). It was, to put it one way, clearly a &nbsp;project of passion: the actors', the writers', and the fans'. Perhaps that's why approaching an analysis of it as a way to understand passion seems like a natural fit to me.<br /><br />Tara Seetharam wrote <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/gilmore-girls-the-first-millennial-show-to-come-full-circle/508574/" target="_blank">an <i>Atlantic</i>&nbsp;piece</a> about the reboot's potential to show a full-circle Millennial arc. She smartly places the show as a whole in conversation with its pop culture descendants and concludes with a hopeful tone about what <i>A Year in the Life</i>&nbsp;can provide:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>But the return of Rory Gilmore—a textured, early-aughts character who mostly preceded the scrutiny of her generation—will be a fascinating contribution to this developing narrative. Her arc will link her generation’s foundation with its emergence into adulthood in an unprecedented way. In doing so, A Year in the Life could help make the case for seeing other Millennial stories through, from their awkward beginnings to their, hopefully, more enlightened ends.</i></blockquote>The show definitely handed this "Millennial arc" directly, often in a ham-fisted way. The "Thirtysomething Gang," which is featured in one of the promos for the show and never develops past that caricature, represents Rory's worst fears: that she has "come back" home a "loser" without any prospects for the future. The Thirtysomethings are infinitely mockable, doe-eyed and lost, spending their nights re-enacting movie scenes while clinging to one another for comfort. Sure, they're supposed to be a joke, but it's a joke whose punchline has been repeated again and again in the culture at large: "Kids today! Am I right?"<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oTKD7JOMXHs" width="560"></iframe></div><br />We don't get any detailed looks at what has placed the members of the Thirtysomething gang in their predicament. Babette tells us they went out in the world, got chewed up by it, and returned. So were they rejected from jobs? Were they unable to make ends meet on their own? Were they crushed by student loan debt? We don't know.<br /><br />What we do know is that Rory Gilmore's similar crisis is mostly of her own making. She is not facing a shortage of opportunities. She has worked steadily, but unsatisfactorily. We see that she's gotten some great writing opportunities (most notably a well-received <i>New Yorker</i>&nbsp;piece) which she is unable to successfully transform into a more full-time gig. We watch her struggle through attempts at co-writing a book, pitching pieces to <i>GQ</i>, and even taking over the <i>Stars Hollow Gazette</i>&nbsp;as volunteer editor. In each case, she starts out excited by the possibilities and then dejected by the less-than-fantastic reality.<br /><br />This is not new territory for our youngest Gilmore. She faced a very similar choice in the final season when she turned down a solid reporting job in the hopes of getting the coveted Reston Fellowship, a fellowship she did not get. When she tries to double back and take the job, it has already been filled. Her decision to chase the passion project instead of taking the safer-but-still-rooted-in-her-field choice was a point of contention between Logan and Lorelai. Lorelai insisted that hedging your bets and making some choices out of concern for stability was a smart move. Logan, himself freshly having rejected his father's dynasty for his own idealistic dreams, insists that passion is more important. We could boil it down to "Follow your dreams" vs. "Use your dreams as a guide, but do it while you're awake with both eyes open."<br /><br />When the original series ended, following her passion (and Logan's advice) instead of playing it safe (as Lorelai wished) seemed to have steered Rory into a good position. She's excited about following Barack Obama's presidential bid and seems to have the world at her feet. The reboot, though, shows us that things weren't exactly as they seemed.<br /><br />For one, we get a closer look at Logan. His bucking the yoke of his father's dynastic intentions seems to have been much more temporary than the conclusion of the series suggested. In <i>A Year in the Life</i>, he's right back on his father's path, including marrying a French heiress who we never see and who operates as a symbol of Logan's subservience to his destiny. While I think we can (and should) debate what this portrayal means through a feminist lens, I'm more interested in this discussion in what it means about Logan's previous advice to Rory. He told her to follow her dreams no matter what, and he used his own gutsy move as a model, but now we know that at some point he came back in line with his father's demands. Did his business fail? Did his father have to bail him out . . . again? It's a lot easier to say "fuck the system" when you know that you can always fall back on daddy's money and a life full of safety nets when it goes wrong.<br /><br />Rory, too, has safety nets. The brief scene with Christopher shows him offering her money. The Chilton Headmaster offers her a job "in any discipline" teaching at a prestigious private school. She has friends across the world willing to put her up (often in luxurious surroundings) for free.<br /><br />Perhaps, then, she's not the best case study for how one should handle the balance of passion and practicality. What, instead, can we learn from those around her?<br /><br />The theme to <i>Gilmore Girls</i>&nbsp;as a whole is just this: What happens when passion meets reality? When do you bend and what happens if you break? Virtually every character represents this theme in some way or another, and a closer look at how the show wraps up their story arc might give us a clearer idea of what overall message we're to receive.<br /><br />Like Logan, Jess and Dean exist more as conduits into Rory's story than fleshed out characters of their own. With that in mind, what can we learn from their reappearance?<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><u><b>Dean</b></u></span><br />When Rory sees Dean in Doose's Market, she lays out very clearly what he represents to her. "The perfect first boyfriend" functioned to teach her "what safe felt like." We see that Dean has gone on to represent that to someone else: a wife now pregnant with her fourth child. His representation of a status quo protectionism is both familiar and comforting, but Rory rejected what he represented, and I get the sense that (even if she's nostalgic for what it might have meant) she's still glad that she did. That kind of safety came with more sacrifices than she was willing to make, sacrifices not just of opportunity but also of identity.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Jess</u></b></span><br />Jess, on the other hand, is there to ignite a flame of identity in Rory. He's the one who suggests the Gilmore Girls book project that seems to be Rory's&nbsp;<i>raison&nbsp;d'être&nbsp;</i>at the end of the reboot. His longing look at her through the window after his insistence that his love for her is "long over" suggests that she still represents a kind of "one that got away" for him, but what does he represent to us? He, like Luke, followed a passion that others didn't see as worthy and made it into a comfortable, if modest, existence. His main role, though, is to be what he has always been: Dean's foil. If Dean represents the safe and boring extinguishing of Rory's individuality, Jess represents the steady and bright burning of it.&nbsp;</blockquote>The other supporting characters in the show seems to function as some kind of lesson in what following your dreams can entail. Here are the lessons they teach as I see them.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Lane and Zack&nbsp;</u></b></span><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>Lane and Zack are also Millennials, and Lane, like Logan, bucked a lifetime of tradition and expectations in order to follow her dreams. We see in the original series that those dreams are immediately tempered by the realities of having to make a living (she's waitressing to pay her bills) and family obligations (she finds herself pregnant with twins immediately following her wedding and gives up the opportunity to go on tour because of the logistical nightmare). We already knew, then, that Lane represented a cautionary tale when it came to following your dreams. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>A Year in the Life</i>&nbsp;gives us an endearing revival of Hep Alien. Domestic life, financial responsibilities, and commitment to rock and roll have braided together to give us Zack with a day job he doesn't seem to like ("I didn't ask for this promotion!") and a literal changing of persona in order to go back to his "real" self as a rock star ("Is he him yet?"). We see them playing at The Secret Bar at night, so presumably they are managing the balance in a way that offers some kind of fulfillment, but it certainly isn't the world tours and life of fame that Lane dreamed of. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The lesson here: <b>Scraps of your dreams are better than no dreams at all</b>. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Sookie</u></b></span><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>Probably owing more to the real-life dreams of Melissa McCarthy than anything else, Sookie's story is . . . odd. She has abandoned her dream of the Dragonfly to live an experimental life of tasting dirt (really!) and growing things. She is presented as having followed her passions to the extreme, and she sacrifices a lot to do it. She loses out on her friendships and is incensed to see that "her" kitchen has been sullied by other chefs in her absence. I guess you could see her arc as a success if you squint, but to me it felt mostly like a sad warning: <b>follow your dreams too closely and you'll end up giving up everything you gain along the way.&nbsp;</b>&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Michele</u></b></span><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>Michele's story is complicated. He has married, and his husband desperately wants children. Michele admits that he is going to give in to this demand without passion. He says that fatherhood, for him, will always be an act. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Perhaps that's why it becomes so important to him that his work life fully represent his passions since his home life no longer can. He is set to leave the Dragonfly unless Lorelai finds a way to expand it and give him more responsibility and power. She ultimately ingratiates herself to her mother (something we all know she hates) in order to meet these demands.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">I guess the lesson from him is something like this: <b>You can't compromise everything. If you give in here, you have to stay firm there.&nbsp;</b>&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><span style="color: orange;"><u>Luke</u></span></b><b><span style="color: orange;"><u><br /></u></span></b>Luke, in my eyes, is the biggest success story. He literally did exactly what he wanted with his life. He built a diner, rejected anyone else's attempts to make it more than he wanted it to be, and married a woman he loved to spend his days with.<br />His lesson: <b>Don't let anyone else tell you&nbsp;what your dream is</b>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Paris</u></b></span><span style="color: orange;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>Paris is probably the biggest on-paper success. She runs a fertility empire, and she runs it with her signature iron fist, leaving anyone who dare cross her physically shaking.<br />As we see from the scene in the Chilton bathroom, though, she isn't particularly satisfied with the life she built. Her divorce from Doyle is taking a toll on her, and she even accuses Rory of having an affair with him, a clear sign of insecurity. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">What was Paris' passion? In the original series, we see her equally willing to be a lawyer or a doctor, largely based off of the prestige of the institutions willing to accept her. We find out that she has stitched these opportunities together and handles legal and medical issues in her role as fertility director. At the end of the day, though, Paris' definition of success has always been determined by someone else. She is the foil to Luke, and her ultimate "success" may look a lot better than his, but it rings hollow when struck. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Her lesson is the same as Luke's but told as cautionary tale rather than role model: <b>Don't let anyone else tell you what your dream is</b>. <b>(And if you do, you may end up with no dream at all.)&nbsp;</b></blockquote><br />Obvious omissions from my list are Lorelai and Emily. As the other titular "Gilmore Girls," they seem like a good place to close.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><b><u>Lorelai&nbsp;</u></b></span>Lorelai is obviously a case study in success through adversity, and she is clearly struggling with the outcome in <i>A Year in the Life</i>. After a scrappy, individualistic life of doing things her own way, she got exactly what she said she always wanted. There is a very overt, direct discussion of how she refuses to compromise. Her mother mocks her for it, and she points out to Luke that everything from how they live to who controls the closet has been decided by her. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Her <i>Wild</i>&nbsp;moment (gag me; my least favorite part of the reboot) has her reflecting on this in a very direct way, and when she returns, she marries Luke and agrees to expand the inn, both attempts to put her apparent newfound attitude into action.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: orange;"><u><b>Emily</b></u></span><br />Emily has always done what everyone expected of her. Her role as Richard's wife was largely about keeping up appearances. Her home, her clothes, her long list of volunteer duties, the food she prepares, the maids she fires, everything about her is a representation of that role. In the reboot, we see it all come apart when Richard is no longer there to anchor it. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Emily, who famously never kept a maid for longer than an episode and once fired one for walking too loudly, now has one maid's entire family living in her home. In fact, they have largely taken over the place. She gives a "bullshit"-laden rant to the DAR and is effectively removed from her duties before selling her house and retreating to her presumable final act as a lively (and kind of scary) docent at a Whaling Museum. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">It is absurd, but it is also my favorite part of the show. Here is a woman who has worn the weight of other's expectations for her entire life. She has passed that weight along at every chance she's gotten, and now, suddenly, she has decided to rid herself of it all together. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Marie Kondo's tidying tips are lightly mocked in the show, but Emily ultimately puts her core principles into practice in a way that goes far beyond ditching some clothes and furniture. If it doesn't bring you joy, get rid of it. In this case, the "it" turned out to mean virtually every part of her life.&nbsp;</blockquote>So what does it all mean? Every character, major and minor, followed an arc of dream-seeking with varying degrees of success. What are we, the viewers, supposed to take away from it? And what do those final four words have to do with it?<br /><br />One of Lorelai's dreams was to give Rory a life different from her own, but when Rory reveals that she's pregnant (with either Logan's child as he goes off to marry into his destiny or the child of a nameless one-night-stand dressed as a Wookie), what happens to Lorelai's hopes for her? Rory has come full circle and brought us right back where we started. Sure, she has more resources than her teenage mother did. She has an education, at least the sprouts of a career, and a whole town full of support. She gets to start out with the things that Lorelai had to fight to weave into her single motherhood.<br /><br />Lorelai's destiny was to become Emily, a persona we now know functioned more as a trap than a success. Becoming pregnant with Rory was the catalyst for removing herself from that trap, and even though it brought about challenges and delays, Lorelai ultimately used her identity as struggling single mother to build the life she wanted. Her main lesson is now how to go back and let other people in, to compromise some of those dreams to allow other people's dreams to overlap with hers. Rory was never confined to such a destiny. Her path was always wide open, so perhaps her own impending single motherhood functions in the opposite way. Will she now have a reason to focus? A reason to stop casting off opportunities as insufficient because she finally has some definition?<br /><br />I wish there were some neater message to take away from a show that I have always loved, but ultimately <i>A Year in the Life</i>&nbsp;left me with more questions than answers. I don't think that was its intention. There were too many on-the-nose lectures and symbols around, but I don't think they ultimately worked.<br /><br />If Rory is supposed to stand in as a Millennial lesson (a lesson to my generation) on how to live in this world, I don't feel particularly optimistic. (Considering how the rest of 2016 has gone, perhaps that's fitting--if disappointing--after all.)http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/11/what-gilmore-girls-teaches-us-about.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-9010984183869433178Tue, 15 Nov 2016 17:56:00 +00002016-11-15T11:56:04.373-06:00bookscrimefemale bodyfeminismpoliticsprisonsracismtechnologySpines for Spine: My Book Plans As my previous post-election posts have suggested, I'm feeling a little dejected (and a lot angry) right now. I've been in numerous Facebook debates about tone policing and the purpose of protest. Even many of the brilliant pieces of commentary and analysis shared across social media have been overwhelming me to the point of distraction.<br /><br />I made a vow to spend less time there and more time reading books.<br /><br />That didn't feel quite concrete enough, so I made a plan. Starting three days ago, I have a three-book rotation. One nonfiction book to make me reflect on the past and its relationship to the present, one fiction book to make me reflect on my values and the risks to them, and one philosophical text to make me think about the future.<br /><br />As I finish any one of the three, I'm going to replace it with another book that fits the same broad category.<br /><br />Here's what I've got going on right now:<br /><br /><b><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><u>Past to Present (Nonfiction): Michelle Alexander's <i>The New Jim Crow</i></u></span></b><br /><b><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><u><i><br /></i></u></span></b>I've already read several pieces on this topic, and I recently watched (and highly recommend) the excellent documentary <i>The 13th</i>&nbsp;around similar issues, but this book is quickly becoming a seminal text on the topic of institutionalized racism and the criminal justice system, so I decided it's high time I dig into it.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2VqvL_1wVD8/WCtLZmVNpvI/AAAAAAAAEnU/01U57or2qHUgZkeDLwyLandyQXG89vaIACLcB/s1600/home_book_cvr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2VqvL_1wVD8/WCtLZmVNpvI/AAAAAAAAEnU/01U57or2qHUgZkeDLwyLandyQXG89vaIACLcB/s320/home_book_cvr.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><br />It helps that an area activist book club chose it as our first read. I'm hoping to be able to have some smart and difficult conversations with insightful people soon, especially as private prison stocks soared once news got around that Trump was the president-elect. I anticipate this is a fight that will require constant attention.<br /><br />&nbsp;<span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b><u>Values and Risks (Fiction): Margaret Atwood's&nbsp;<i>The Handmaid's Tale</i></u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b><u><i><br /></i></u></b></span>I should have read this already. I don't know how I made it through so many American literature classes without it ever being a requirement, and I don't know how I have made it through so much feminist exploration since without picking it up on my own, but here we are. I'm reading it now.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y4z6UgRyg5E/WCtLcO5izdI/AAAAAAAAEnY/7JMs2NHxUXEUFXZN6zSGElGbwmk9qhjKgCEw/s1600/handmaids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y4z6UgRyg5E/WCtLcO5izdI/AAAAAAAAEnY/7JMs2NHxUXEUFXZN6zSGElGbwmk9qhjKgCEw/s320/handmaids.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><br />It is a chilling time to read this for the first time, indeed. What should feel like an absolutely absurd dystopian view of the future surrounding women's rights and the politicizing of women's bodies instead feels like echoes of reality.<br /><br /><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b><u>The Future (Philosophy): Calum Chace's <i>The Economic Singularity</i></u></b></span><br /><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>There has been a lot of talk about the "forgotten" working class in America, the people who are hoping their manufacturing and labor industry jobs will be returned to them. We have scapegoated (with varying degrees of accuracy) immigrants, globalization, and increased environmental regulations for taking the bread and butter away from "real" Americans, but we are not really talking about the fact that we're solidly on our way toward a technological revolution that may well make all jobs obsolete. The working class will be hit first, but everything from transportation to interpretation, from being a lawyer to being a nurse is on its way toward automation.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afn0RxwsW9o/WCtLcFix90I/AAAAAAAAEnc/S4pHF-KHEPE4qcwl7RiUS0e4qizFT2jVgCEw/s1600/The_Economic_Singularity_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afn0RxwsW9o/WCtLcFix90I/AAAAAAAAEnc/S4pHF-KHEPE4qcwl7RiUS0e4qizFT2jVgCEw/s320/The_Economic_Singularity_Cover.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />There are plenty of things we need to ask ourselves as this science fiction becomes reality, but one of the concerns is economic: what does the American mantra of "work hard=success" (already inaccurate and used as a tool of oppression) mean when there is no hard work left to do? That's what I'm hoping to think about by reading this book.<br /><br /><b>So those are my reading plans. I'll share any insights I have along the way, but I also welcome suggestions for what to add to each category as I move through these texts. I also welcome conversations from anyone who is also reading these books right now.&nbsp;</b>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/11/spines-for-spine-my-book-plans.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-1335053206656795472Fri, 11 Nov 2016 05:15:00 +00002016-11-10T23:15:07.975-06:00electionspoliticsrhetoricsocial justicesocial mediaWays You Will Not Silence Me Today I took a social media hiatus when the election results became apparent. I have a lot of conservative Facebook friends and family members, many of whom very vocally supported Trump, and I was certain that I could not handle their responses. My self-imposed isolation didn't last long, though, because I realized that I desperately needed the solidarity and immediate sense of belonging I could get there. I was right. There was so much love, plans for the future, and repudiation of the message of hate that had just won the highest office in the land. It gave me life.<br /><br />But, of course, the posts I had feared were there as well. I hid some of them from my feed because I found myself unable to resist the urge to respond, an urge that would have led me into a self-defeating spiral of wasted emotion and energy. Instead, I made posts of my own, posts I felt captured my anger and frustration but also pointed to paths forward. I made the kind of posts that I needed to see. I added them to the discussion within a community of people who desperately needed to know they were not alone and that their voices mattered.<br /><br />And that is why I will not be quiet. I will not be told to stop speaking out about this. I will not be told to "stop whining."<br /><br /><i>I will not be silent</i>.<br /><br />Just in case that wasn't clear enough, I want to list the ways I will not be silenced:<br /><br /><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b>Calls for Unity</b></span><br /><br />They've come in many forms. The "now is the time for our country to come together and heal" posts. The "I just want everyone to find peace" posts. This:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cTj8a1xe5Qw/WCVKtJdKnlI/AAAAAAAAEm4/PE11JGZNNFsTsxIVMWQvbu1lpt9QrI_BgCLcB/s1600/15056246_10101251758398501_2192555064753030803_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cTj8a1xe5Qw/WCVKtJdKnlI/AAAAAAAAEm4/PE11JGZNNFsTsxIVMWQvbu1lpt9QrI_BgCLcB/s320/15056246_10101251758398501_2192555064753030803_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A Trump supporter posted this with a plea for us to all just move forward now.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I don't hate anyone. This sign accurately reflects my own position. I refuse to allow hate into my heart even for those who quite clearly hold hate for me, but that's not the point right now.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The point is that you can't use a call for "unity" or "peace" to silence the righteous indignation and passionate dissent against a vote for hatred.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Donald Trump didn't run on policy. He didn't have a single political policy platform unless you count "build a wall" or "ban Muslims." He ran on hate. He ran on division. He delighted in having people beaten at his rallies and laughed while offering to pay for the attackers legal fees. He bragged about grabbing women by the "pussy" without their consent and then defended it as "locker room talk," which means that it is language he uses comfortably and often. He mocked a Gold Star family, a reporter with a disability, a woman for gaining weight. He displayed himself, publicly and as platform, to be a bigot, liar, bully, and unrepentant hate-monger.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And if you voted for hate, you no longer have the ethos to call for civility. You have ushered in a discourse of vitriol. I will never stoop to the level of our country's new "leader," but I will not sit quietly so that his supporters can enjoy their newly elected mascot of bigotry in "peace."&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b>"God's Plan"</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I cannot count how many times I have been told to "calm down" because "God is in control" and this is "all a part of his plan."&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gD8Ocsa5fhc/WCVNST2yILI/AAAAAAAAEnE/DlfzBPczSSUgst8lQuPQ9VofnN8fIwyyQCLcB/s1600/JESUS-IS-KING.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gD8Ocsa5fhc/WCVNST2yILI/AAAAAAAAEnE/DlfzBPczSSUgst8lQuPQ9VofnN8fIwyyQCLcB/s320/JESUS-IS-KING.png" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well, I don't live in a monarchy.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">First of all, that's certainly not how <i>any </i>of these people felt when the political landscape didn't look quite so appealing to them, but let's set that aside for a moment.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Second of all, there are a whole lot of horrendous human atrocities you are glossing over as part of God's master plan with this line of logic: the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, child sex trafficking, slavery, the mass slaughter of Native Americans as we claimed their land in the name of "freedom." You do not get to call upon God as a way of excusing the worst actions humans have committed. That's a cop out and a disgrace to faith. But let's even put that aside.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If this is "all" a part of "God's plan," then so am I and my anger. So are my friends and their anger. We are part of "all." If God planned for Trump to win, then he also planned for us to protest. If this is all some giant cosmic chess game, then these pieces are also in play. You will not shut me down by pretending that you know the outcome. I don't believe in predestination, but if I am wrong, then I am predestined to do what I am doing. You cannot use God as a weapon of silence.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Speaking of which . . .&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b>Pretending the Bible is the Only Source of Historical or Literary Guidance&nbsp;</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Read your Bible," they say to me when they can no longer address any actual argumentative substance.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Read your <i>Handmaid's Tale</i>. Read your <i>The Fire Next Time</i>. Read your Aristotle. Read your <i>Slaughterhouse-Five.</i> Read your fucking history books, and pay careful attention to the parts about demagogues.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">You're not going to send me on a scripture scavenger hunt to stop me from pointing out bigotry and hate.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;">"<b>Now You Know How We Felt When Obama was Elected"</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Or, more likely, the quote reads "Obummer" or "Nobama."&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">No. Just no.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Obama has been a paragon of class and respect for others. He has never, not ever, called upon hatred as a course of action. Also, he actually ran on plans and policies. You may have disagreed with those plans and policies, and I understand that, but he ran on them and was elected on their merit.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If Tuesday had brought me President-elect Jeb Bush or President-elect Marco Rubio or President-elect Ted Cruz, I would have been disappointed. But I would not have been terrified.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My objection to Trump is not a political objection. I don't know what his politics are. You don't know what his politics are. He didn't share them, and his constituents didn't bother to make it a requirement that he do so. He ran on hate, and they decided hate was enough. He railed against Obamacare, but offered no substitution. He promised to build a wall, but offered no path to pay for it. He has absolutely no experience as a politician, and the experience he does have is in running businesses into the ground and using tax loopholes to get rich while he does so, all the while stiffing the working class people who staff those businesses and shipping his manufacturing overseas.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To compare that to Obama's candidacy is not just disingenuous, it's insane.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Just in case you need a reminder of just how different these two candidates are, watch this:&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBuzzFeedNews%2Fvideos%2F1108709599150057%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My candidate has lost elections. I am a liberal, feminist, Democrat in Missouri. My candidates have lost a lot of elections. I do not take to the streets to protest them. I believe in the democratic process. I accept that there are different viewpoints, and I value that. I am disappointed, not terrified, that Roy Blunt is still my senator. But Trump's win terrifies me.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And here's why I am scared. I am not scared of Trump. He's, as an individual, a failed businessman with egomania and the communication ability of a possum stuck in a trash can. He doesn't scare me. What scares me is that half the country heard his hatred and felt it needed to be codified and championed, that it needed to be rewarded, that it needed to be the face of America. I am not scared of him; I am scared of what his win means about the people around me and what they think when they see me, see my friends, see my family.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Maybe you were scared of what Obama's policies would do to the country (though, by virtually every measure, he improved it), but that's not the same thing. We have checks and balances set up to put reins on policy. We have no checks and balances for endorsed, sanctioned hatred.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b>"Stop Whining"&nbsp;</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I am fighting for the very core of the principles that I believe make life worth living. I am fighting for the safety, for the lives, of my friends and family. I am fighting for respect, tolerance, and love.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I am fighting for America.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If you want to call that whining, I don't care.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But I won't stop doing it.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And if you thought that these "libtard" "feminazi" "whiners" were too loud before Tuesday, buckle up. We are half of this nation, and one piece of analysis coming out of this election rings completely true to me: Trump's win <i>does</i>&nbsp;come with a mandate: we've been mandated to fight, donate, organize, vote, run for office, and create the world we need.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">You will not silence me. Not today. Not ever.&nbsp;</div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/11/ways-you-will-not-silence-me-today.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-5952693361742562951Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:05:00 +00002016-11-09T06:05:47.019-06:00I Am Not OkayIt is 3:30 in the morning, and I am not okay.<br /><br />I woke up a little less than twenty-four hours ago, dropped my baby son off at daycare, and came back to walk with my husband to vote. I felt a wave of enthusiasm and pride. I even remarked to my husband, as we walked home, how proud I was that my kids were going to grow up just thinking it was completely normal to have both a black president and a woman president. They would grow up in a world where gay rights were always present. Sure, there would be battles, but they would have a base in a world where equality, tolerance, and progression underpinned their understanding of the American project.<br /><br />I picked my daughter up from kindergarten where she had held a mock election. Nine students had voted for Clinton. "Can you believe four people voted for Donald Trump, Mommy?! He is a bully!" She went to bed chanting (with no prompting from me) that Hillary Clinton was going to be president. What a wonderful image for my little girl to have: a powerful woman who had worked hard in public service her whole life ascending to the top position in the country through experience and compromise. Was she a perfect candidate? No, but there is no such thing.<br /><br />Though I had gotten nervous in the past few weeks as Clinton's chances became less stable, I turned on the news expecting to see a repudiation of the vile, racist, misogynistic hatred that Trump not only oozed but championed. I thought about every time he kicked someone out of a rally, every time he demeaned women, every time he called for a ban on Muslims, every time he made a racist remark about the "inner cities," every time he incited his base to violence. I thought about how he was literally endorsed by the KKK. I thought about the way he had mocked a reporter with a disability, a Latina beauty queen, a Gold Star family. &nbsp;I was ready to bask in some schadenfreude. I was ready to watch him see that his coalition, while loud, was also small, too small to hand over the nuclear codes to someone who couldn't be trusted with his own Twitter account because of his instability and poor temper.<br /><br />You know how the rest of my night went. Perhaps your night went the same. Perhaps you felt the first wave of tension as North Carolina drew ever closer. Perhaps you told yourself, "Well, she doesn't need Florida to win." Perhaps you continued to hope until after midnight. Perhaps you felt the dread rising up around you.<br /><br />This is not about losing to a Republican. I live in Missouri. I lose to Republicans all the time. My state has gone red when my vote went blue over and over again. This is not even about electing a bad president. We have had bad presidents. America is strong enough to survive an electoral error.<br /><br />This is about finding out just how much of the country hates everything I love. This is about finding out just how many people around me hate me because I am a woman, hate my family because it is multi-racial, hate my friends because they are gay, hate my friends because they are Muslim.<br /><br />If you voted for Donald Trump, you are not my friend even if I am yours. This is not in the sense that I will "unfriend" you for thinking differently from me. I hope that I have demonstrated, through countless hours of respectful debate, through refusing to cull my social media feeds of acquaintances even when they spewed vitriol that I am open to conflicting views. I support rhetorical pluralism. I believe we need to hear each other.<br /><br />But friends have to protect one another. Friends look beyond their own interests alone and ask themselves, "What will this do to those I love?"<br /><br />If you voted for Donald Trump, did you ask yourself what it would mean for my children? Children of color who have to grow up in this world? Did you ask yourself what it would mean for gay couples who are already constantly vigilant against efforts to deny them the right to exist? Did you ask yourself what it would mean for me, a woman who has been sexually assaulted? Did you ask yourself what it would mean for millions of people who cannot safely walk down the street without fear of harassment? If you did not, then you cannot call yourself my friend. If you did and still came down on the side of hate, then I don't know what you can call yourself.<br /><br />I have never felt like this before. I have always believed, deep in my heart, that love wins. I have always believed, even in the face of anger and disrespect, that people will find the right path eventually.<br /><br />For example, many members of my extended family have treated my immediate family horribly. Some of them are probably reading this. I hope that they are. When I was 19, I brought my now-husband/then-boyfriend home for the holidays. When we entered the community building where we held the extended Christmas, the air grew palpably tense. Most of my family would not look at us, let alone speak to us. The ones who did speak to us did so with apprehension. You see, my husband, by being a black man, had somehow offended them. His existence offended them.<br /><br />Two of my uncles were so offended that they could not contain themselves. They made a big show about physically moving away from us. One of them refused to eat under the same roof as my husband. He marched his <i>entire family</i>&nbsp;out the door rather than do so. They walked out in front of me. I went in the bathroom and sobbed.<br /><br />Most of the other members of my family <i>said nothing</i>! A few of them tried to comfort me with placating statements like "You have to understand, it's just his way." "He was raised in a different time."<br /><br />I avoided them all for years. Four years later, I got married, and one of those same uncles tried to talk another family member out of walking me down the aisle. Think about that for a second. It wasn't enough that he sit in his hate on his own; he needed it to be spread around. Thankfully, his efforts failed, and I did have a smattering of love and support from my family on my wedding day. It was only a fraction of the very large collection of aunts, uncles, and cousins that could have been there (that I invited despite the tension), but there were some.<br /><br />Years later, we had kids. I wanted my children to know their family. They're already down to one grandparent. My father and my husband's mother died before my children were even born. Last year, we lost my father-in-law on the same day I miscarried what would have been our second child. My mother rarely sees us because she is afraid of "the city." (Little does she understand that I'm afraid of "the country" for reasons much more concrete than hers. Her neighbors literally shot guns into the air while screaming the n-word at my husband. I guarantee you that my neighbors have never done that to her.) The lack of family in our lives hurts me. I value family very deeply, and I miss these connections so very, very much.<br /><br />So when a few members of my extended family offered olive branches by inviting us to big gatherings, I swallowed my anger and pride and went. Everyone was cordial. Some of my family was even genuinely kind and interested in my life. Most of them seemed to feel awkward around us, and that could easily have been as much a factor of not knowing me as an adult as thinking about their own past behavior.<br /><br />But here's the thing: No one apologized. Not the uncles who walked out at Christmas. Not the family members who stood by silently and said nothing as it happened. In all that time, one cousin privately messaged me to say that she was ashamed of not having spoken out and was sorry. Other than the one family that I was already close to (which included the man who walked me down the aisle), no one even talked about it. They wanted to sweep it under the rug.<br /><br />And I let them. Privately, my husband and I talked about it a lot. I didn't want to deprive my children of a family to know and love, but I also didn't want to put my husband in the difficult position of having to go make nice with people who had so overtly mistreated him. He went and was gracious because he is an amazing man.<br /><br />In my heart, I thought that they were ashamed of the way they had acted and didn't know how to express it. I thought that they recognized how wrong they had been and were trying to set it right. I was angry and hurt, but I worked very hard to set it aside for the sake of peace.<br /><br />I'm supposed to go see them in two weeks. We're having a family gathering of thanksgiving and love. I don't think I can go.<br /><br />I know that many of them voted for Trump. (And this isn't speculation. A lot of them posted about their decisions. Some even posted about how difficult it was to make the decision because they didn't want to support him but ultimately "had to.") Many of them voted to throw our country back into a time when my marriage would be illegal, when the discrimination against my children and husband was codified into law. They weren't sorry (and I should have known, since they never said they were); they were tolerating me until they could destroy everything I loved. When they saw their chance, they pounced.<br /><br />Right now, I am reflecting on a lot of interactions I have had in the past. I've always tried to look past the hurt of these kinds of conflicts and understand the individual person within them. I've always tried to meet these slights with compassion. I've always given people the benefit of the doubt that even when they did things that were cruel and bigoted, they were on a path toward figuring things out and that basic human decency would prevail.<br /><br />Now I feel like I was a fool. How's the Maya Angelou quote go? "When people show you who they are, believe them."<br /><br />I believe you now. And maybe me letting it all get pushed under the rug helped create this America, this America where hate wins the day. I feel like I did not do enough. I did not fight enough. I did not make it clear enough that these words and actions were not okay. By allowing racism and hatred to exist in this closeted way without my direct objection, did I help allow it to become bold enough to march out and vote yesterday?<br /><br />I don't know how to go out into the world tomorrow. I don't know how to look people in the eye without wondering: "Do you hate me?" "Do you hate my family?" "Do you hate my friends?"<br /><br />Because make no mistake, if you voted for Trump, you voted for hate: raw, red, fiery, vitriolic, painful, discriminatory, degrading hate. And I am on the receiving end of it. My family is on the receiving end of it. My students are on the receiving end of it. My friends are on the receiving end of it.<br /><br />If you voted for Trump, you voted against us and everything we have worked for.<br /><br />If you voted for Trump, you voted against me.<br /><br />And now I have to face my daughter in two hours and tell her that the bully won. In three hours, I have to face my students, already plagued by a racist system that has them despondent, and try to tell them that democracy is a process. Every day, I have to face myself and try to believe that I hold value in a country that just told me very loudly that I do not.<br /><br />And I am not okay.http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/11/i-am-not-okay.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-4841863626176992627Sat, 15 Oct 2016 16:39:00 +00002016-10-15T11:39:25.982-05:00bloggingself carewritingI Guess I'm Not DoneLast night, I woke up at 3am to feed the baby and couldn't get back to sleep. I had a blog post idea, so I went to the admin site to draft it, and I found out that I had (through my own fault) lost my domain name. My blog was directing to nothing.<br /><br />This was a gut check for me. The reason I didn't notice that the domain was expiring was because I hadn't been logging in here often to post. My life is a chaotic mess of projects and parenting, and writing here is always on the list, but it's at the bottom. Then it gets pushed lower. Then it disappears.<br /><br />My domain name expiring could have been a way out. I've seen plenty of blogs come and go over the years, and this would have been a natural, organic way to find my stopping point. The "expiring" could have been metaphorical as well as technical.<br /><br />But I didn't want to expire. I felt the loss of this space (even though I've been neglecting it) immediately and intensely. It felt like coming home and finding out my bedroom had been filled with cement when all I really wanted to do was crawl into bed and nap.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uAQFzug4kYE/WAJbi6e7snI/AAAAAAAAEmc/Ysg6EWGJyfU3nPt2dufx4pPxRtw4G_R_QCLcB/s1600/5643035911_7cd13ff4ef_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uAQFzug4kYE/WAJbi6e7snI/AAAAAAAAEmc/Ysg6EWGJyfU3nPt2dufx4pPxRtw4G_R_QCLcB/s320/5643035911_7cd13ff4ef_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />I may not be able to write here as often as I would like (come to think of it, I'm also not able to crawl into bed and nap as often as I would like), but I still want the option.<br /><br />I spent a healthy chunk of time on hold with tech support today to get my domain back. It was time I couldn't really spare, but I did it anyway.<br /><br />When you find something that fills a void, you fight to keep it.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/29638108@N06/5643035911/in/photolist-9AE2YB-581qcp-8RAh9A-AV4vB-53wuDr-mpfa8C-5V74xk-4SkgpR-8MNG9C-bqEEp1-p5kzWx-aranh5-6xLFD-AKv5E-5f9U9y-gBVZFm-6tphK3-5qMu1x-5rUVMS-9PUVZv-5t9m6p-89Y7Tw-8hDo2e-bw6KyL-5ZYDWi-5Maw7u-7BwCY6-4RL2fc-3e32yT-6mGE2D-p53rAA-cKNx7-9mh1cL-4miWvN-9gpsdt-a6iiCc-4Q29wx-dWT8k4-4c9uUa-4ec8gY-oCLe-qyiu6-dv1Hse-3oQNCy-bwhMns-bnJGcG-6azqqB-biGDnV-6NEaV-544mu8" target="_blank">Jennifer C.&nbsp;</a></span><br /><br /><br />http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/10/i-guess-im-not-done.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-6494365055354108984Tue, 30 Aug 2016 08:41:00 +00002016-08-30T03:41:53.904-05:00academic freedomagonismcollegedebateseducationfree speechrhetoricsafe spacesBanning Safe Spaces in the Name of Active Debate Misses the MarkThe University of Chicago is making headlines with a letter sent to incoming students. The letter, which can be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/08/25/dont-ask-us-for-trigger-warnings-or-safe-spaces-the-university-of-chicago-tells-freshmen/" target="_blank">viewed in its entirety here</a>, highlights the University's "commitment to academic freedom," a commitment that has ostensibly led to three targets: 1) "trigger warnings" on classroom content, 2) canceling speakers with controversial views, and 3) "safe spaces" created on campus. All three of these practices have been deemed a threat to the University's desire for "the freedom to espouse and explore a wide range of ideas."<br /><br />It's that third target that I want to take a closer look at as a rhetoric scholar. What of these "safe spaces"? Do they really threaten the exploration of ideas?<br /><br />Called upon as a bastion of <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/08/26/social-justice-warriors-predictably-freak-out-over-university-of-chicagos-no-safe-space-policy-n2210578" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">liberal</a> "<a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28655/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">social justice warriors</a>" who can't handle rigor and debate, safe spaces are being vilified as sites of intellectual weakness where those who have had their feelings hurt can shut themselves away from the real world and create an alternative where they do not have to be challenged. Presented that way, you can connect the dots to a view where safe spaces act as escape hatches, giving people the option to ignore alternative viewpoints and retreat into an echo chamber where they do not have to face opposition or think about anything that upsets them.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PE2yrpv8lnk/V8VE0INWIzI/AAAAAAAAEl0/lwvhwyTTQDEs8_QwkWQaQTT3WKQDFM3ZQCLcB/s1600/4320696474_9557e2fb72_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PE2yrpv8lnk/V8VE0INWIzI/AAAAAAAAEl0/lwvhwyTTQDEs8_QwkWQaQTT3WKQDFM3ZQCLcB/s320/4320696474_9557e2fb72_z.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br />Not every space can be a safe space, to be sure. Classrooms, in particular, are often sites of debate and competing ideas, especially if they are to be effective places for learning. Public forums, the hallways, and most spaces where students have their day-to-day interactions are not "safe spaces" by the very nature of being populated with a variety of people expressing a variety of thoughts (whether they do so with an aim for debate or not).<br /><br />This is the "real world," opponents of safe spaces proclaim. There are not safe spaces out there, in this imagined reality. You are subject daily to the barrage of all mankind until you retreat into your own private sphere. In the public, in real life, you can't be a special snowflake whose ego is easily bruised or you won't make it, so here, in college, we'll toughen you up so that you may survive.<br /><br />I like arguing. I have a <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2013/07/of-verbal-boxing-matches-and-fist.html" target="_blank">long, documented history</a> of this hobby (just ask my mom. On a side note, I seem to have passed on this trait to my own daughter who, at four, casually said to me, "Mommy, may we have an argue?" on the way home from preschool. She meant that she wanted me to take an opposing side on some topic. We spent the ride with her defending cats as the best pets and me defending dogs.) I believe that rigorous, sometimes painful debate is an important part of a life lived honestly and fully as well as a cornerstone feature of a democracy. I wrote a dissertation about agonistic rhetoric, and I attempt to practice what I preach by actively seeking out opinions that differ from my own and engaging in debate when the opportunity arises. <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2015/09/challenging-cooperative-games-and.html" target="_blank">I've written before</a> about how cooperative approaches to the world are limited and limiting, and we need conflict and competition to thrive.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DI8JCmYiRag/V8VFEORQOKI/AAAAAAAAEl4/1kv1pF8N-F4NuVmNGri8C_ngFQCQKGmegCLcB/s1600/5627038991_c721600b5c_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DI8JCmYiRag/V8VFEORQOKI/AAAAAAAAEl4/1kv1pF8N-F4NuVmNGri8C_ngFQCQKGmegCLcB/s320/5627038991_c721600b5c_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I still believe every word of that. I still believe that ideas must be tested through opposition. I still believe that retreating into echo chambers is dangerous and that we must be willing to be uncomfortable to learn.<br /><br />But along the way, I also wrote about how agonism requires an <a href="http://www.balancingjane.com/2015/08/blogging-to-my-phd-agonistic-cycle-of.html" target="_blank">oscillation between belief and doubt</a>&nbsp;and that cooperative enclaves (or "safe spaces") serve an important rhetorical purpose.<br /><br />Patricia Roberts-Miller, rhetoric scholar and author of one of my favorite books (<i>Deliberate Conflict)</i>, has this to say about safe spaces:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"people need a friendly and supportive place to think through ideas—an enclave—but it is actively dangerous if they do not have to think through those ideas with a hostile audience as well." &nbsp;</blockquote>She also writes this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Conflict at an early stage, while one is still doing the thinking, is assumed to be paralyzing; once one’s position is already determined, then considering a hostile audience can help one think about issues of effectiveness.”&nbsp;</blockquote>She also says this: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Remaining entirely within enclaves is dangerous, as it never allows ideas to be tested, but <b>having no access to enclaves is equally stultifying</b>, in that it does not give people a place where they can explore their own partially articulated ideas."</blockquote>"Having no access to enclaves is equally stultifying." Think about that. Ideas, especially controversial, complex ones that challenge our own status quo, do not come to us fully formed and prepared for intellectual battle. They come to us in spurts and sputters. They come to us half-formed and whispered. They come to us in the middle of the night or the middle of a fight when we are not prepared for them, when we do not yet know what to do with them.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0qDSZJmj38Q/V8VFiW6lpmI/AAAAAAAAEl8/xpKJMq6NzVYECjFdv_3pLQLT_Oqg6cKQACLcB/s1600/5219784764_52d9224bb8_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0qDSZJmj38Q/V8VFiW6lpmI/AAAAAAAAEl8/xpKJMq6NzVYECjFdv_3pLQLT_Oqg6cKQACLcB/s320/5219784764_52d9224bb8_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />And that is why safe spaces matter. If we want to take these ideas out into the world, to test them, to put them up against others and see if they have merit, we have to first develop them and be prepared to back them up. And we can't do that without safe spaces to practice and build.<br /><br />Proponents of safe spaces say that they are juvenile and inconsistent with the real world, but that's not really true. As John Warner notes <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/life-doesnt-have-safe-spaces-bullst" target="_blank">in this post</a>, the "real world" is full of safe spaces:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The teachers’ lounge at a high school is a safe space to vent about students. AA meetings are safe spaces for addicts. Fraternities and sororities are safe spaces (for members). Churches are safe spaces.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Private clubs are safe spaces, often zealously defended from intrusion, as Augusta National Golf Club kept their members safe from the presence of women all the way up until 2012.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Supporters of Donald Trump explicitly say how they appreciate that his rallies make it safe to say things as they “really are,” which they’re not allowed to do in their everyday lives anymore.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Safe space.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Who among us doesn’t appreciate the opportunity to escape to a space that allows us to rest and recuperate from the challenges of life, to be ourselves, to know that we are accepted by those we are with?&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>I think of safe spaces as something like the sideline of a football game, a place you get to go and catch your breath surrounded by your teammates before getting back into the fray."</b></blockquote>Safe spaces, in other words, don't threaten intellectual rigor, they ensure it. If you do not give people the space to step outside the conflict zone of debate and develop their own ideas before returning, you are not getting their best arguments, which means that your ideas aren't really being tested at all.<br /><br />And think about where "safe spaces" usually exist on college campuses and who frequents them. They are places where students at the margins of the academy can come together and share their experiences without judgment. LGBT students often fight for safe spaces. Multicultural centers often exist as safe spaces for racial minorities. Women and gender studies classrooms often attempt to be safe spaces for women. In other words, the people who fight for safe spaces are most often those whose ideas are not readily presented in the mainstream, those who need the time and space for development in order to make sure they are giving their own point of view a fair shot in the debate.<br /><br />As <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12657684/chicago-safe-spaces-trigger-warnings-letter" target="_blank">history professor Kevin Gannon writes for <i>Vox</i></a>, the issue of safe spaces is not really one about freedom, but about power:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Underlying much of the hand-wringing about the state of the academy is a simple desire to have the gatekeepers remain in place. The perception of the threat is entirely out of alignment with the reality on the ground. For every ginned-up hypothetical scenario of spoiled brats having a sit-in to protest too many white guys in the lit course, there are very real cases where trigger warnings or safe spaces aren’t absurdities, but pedagogical imperatives."</blockquote>If you remove the opportunity for people with ideas that challenge the norm to retreat and strengthen their argument, you ensure that the norm will remain in place. It's that simple. If you want true "academic rigor," you have to allow those who disagree with you the space to practice and strengthen their argument. It's not a fair fight if you win a boxing match against someone who hasn't eaten in weeks, and it's not a fair fight to win an argument against someone who hasn't had the chance to develop their argument to its fullest potential.<br /><br />Agonistic rhetoric teaches us that we must move back and forth between cooperation (safe spaces) and antagonism (the fray). We must oscillate between positions where we are believed and positions where we are doubted. But if we remove the opportunity for that oscillation (whether that is because every place is "safe" or because no place is "safe"), we shut down true debate, we shut down the potential for growth, change, and learning.<br /><br />And if there is a place where growth, change, and learning should be the primary goals, it is on a college campus.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cellphonesusie/4320696474/in/photolist-7zNGwN-5Y5uY-8F56pL-8P8u1d-ptrUe2-8UeyFm-pYwcSF-7zJVDZ-6mpUGg-7Mrue-sTfp9-7BvR1r-reFoi-qCSYUk-5MfqrY-7zNF83-s14d1-7zJVcF-4rNuxQ-5BkLLs-4YRtwa-7zNGps-dWNtTX-kfJZB7-ayZn7U-9sMbNi-7zNFAu-ayHX4F-iwS4fM-4saRwS-7zJW3r-ce6Xqj-7zNFXA-ayHX1t-ayLBX5-7zNELC-ao79J6-5aEcRc-5UxZ7S-yaWUXj-7ApGsm-ayHX9M-ao9Uv3-8tqSYN-7zNF11-cANayJ-8XenbF-81A2FW-5UtC8z-kDCw" target="_blank">Susan Smith</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shaktimansethi/5627038991/in/photolist-9zf3DD-e6RKXe-nUab2j-9rNmer-7QUQnK-ArqNy-9VjkJY-dqD3LH-9pAw8C-d7RHoh-4cEBSV-c8jhBG-c8jfhu-fJb2cr-r9chc6-9xipVC-Hw8phc-7rhzF-a4vCJU-hD5QxX-hD4HbC-hD4kyi-hD5Vh6-hD4GyL-9xiycL-a4yY77-km8qpP-hD4q9R-hD4ifk-hD4RAb-ocq5FR-hD4cWK-hD5UTR-hD59N7-hD4XY1-hD4tab-hD5JfX-hD4hND-hD4Ujh-oHDdDe-7GAbu3-d5xSNu-7wjFxq-a4w2d8-pErQK8-eiLk7n-8yPhNb-46UWon-dV5Tpr-a4vAYJ" target="_blank">Shaktiman Sethi</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkn/5219784764/in/photolist-8XfLa3-7AkAoh-4nbond-6g1tUW-4JUeon-7LVTgr-6yNhuR-47CHki-47GSnC-oduotj-dZDiEZ-so11r6-kTB2CM-6b1WQh-8CStS-m7H8Ke-6BYx5Z-pPoDpv-aDMUFG-niF38K-ciqYL9-GUsM-m7H1Tt-9LN43G-m7HXcQ-m9TNMS-5DbzV7-dHbPKS-xGky5-diQVUi-m7GZ72-bvLf4r-YQo7J-JEFLBE-2bQ8ht-Jh7DoL-pm2sTM-Nn28u-32gGXR-diQVYT-6MCYVw-oVjDkd-7NjYXZ-7xV4c5-2b2md-m7HpLo-diQWap-ia2Rx-diQTkU-rm8cMZ" target="_blank">walknboston</a></span>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/08/banning-safe-spaces-in-name-of-active.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-4327394161690189873Wed, 10 Aug 2016 05:49:00 +00002016-08-10T00:56:57.185-05:00anxietymental healthparentingA Copy of a Copy of a Copy: Postpartum Anxiety <i>We'll go to the zoo. It'll be fun. It's not too hot today, and it's the last week of summer vacation. This is a good plan</i>.<br /><br />It was a good plan. Despite the whirlwind of getting out of the house with both kids in tow on my own, the frenzy of finding a place to park, and the juggling of equipment, it was a good plan.<br /><br />Things started out well. The baby smiled happily in the underwater tunnel as the sunlight filtered through onto his face. My daughter leapt joyfully from exhibit to exhibit. It was nice.<br /><br />Then, she started to complain that she was hungry. "Okay," I said. "We'll go get lunch." The baby started crying. He was hungry, too. <i>No problem. </i>I thought to myself. <i>We'll get lunch, and I'll nurse him while we sit in the cafe. It'll be fine.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i>Then we got to the cafe, and the lines were long and confusing. A woman kept getting into and out of the line nearest me, screaming at the man she was with. Her day was not going well. <i>I'll just get in a&nbsp;different line</i>. I scooted over. The line moved slowly, and my daughter danced, darted, spun. "Please stand still." She sat on the floor as lines of people moved around us, inches from getting stepped on. "Come here. Stand still."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vocz-WF5qxQ/V6q-OU-R2nI/AAAAAAAAElY/zJS_AKAIsaARaogD6PIEMojrRtm6tQsSgCLcB/s1600/15755611747_05e6368182_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vocz-WF5qxQ/V6q-OU-R2nI/AAAAAAAAElY/zJS_AKAIsaARaogD6PIEMojrRtm6tQsSgCLcB/s320/15755611747_05e6368182_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I could feel it happening. My heart starts to race, and my throat tightens. My hands were shaking ever so slightly as they gripped the handle on the stroller. The baby fusses as I try again to offer the pacifier and buy a few more minutes. I grab my daughter's arm and pull her toward me. "Do you want to go home?" I hiss. She shakes her head no. "Then <i>stand still." </i>It comes out through clenched teeth. The shake in my hands gets worse.<br /><br />It's our turn. I order her food first and then mine. They don't have what I want. I order something else. They don't have any prepared. It will be a five minute wait. My daughter is ambling over into the other line again. I'm only half listening. "That's fine," I say as I try to corral her back into our designated two feet of space.<br /><br />"You'll need to step to the side," the clerk tells me.<br /><br />"Um," I respond. I try to scoot the stroller over to "the side," which is really a one-foot space between the two long lines. I put my arms straight to try to keep my daughter between them. Then they nudge the tray containing two cups full of drinks and her food at me. "We don't give out lids or straws," the clerk smiles. "For the safety of our animals." I'm balancing the tray with one hand and trying to keep my daughter next to me and the stroller with the other. The shake in my hands has traveled up my arms and into my shoulders. I feel like the walls are closing in on me.<br /><br />"Oh my God!" I say too loudly as my daughter tries to jump up and grab her drink off the barely balanced tray. "You have to stop! I'm going to spill everything! You have to stop!" The woman in line behind me smiles a smile of pity. When my food finally comes a long, long two minutes later, she kindly offers to carry my tray for me. By now the baby is tired of being pacified and his fussing has turned to punctuating shrieks. Each one feels like a dagger to my throat. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," I tell her. I feel like a failure.<br /><br />The rest of the day went fine. We left the crowded cafe, and I nursed the baby in the children's zoo while my daughter made a new friend and played in the sand box. As we got in the car to go home, she was jabbering about all the animals she saw and the baby was sleeping deeply. It looked like a success, but all I could do was keep replaying those moments in cafe, and I still felt like a failure.<br /><br />Even as it's happening--the panic, the shaking, the breaths that catch in my throat--there's a part of me that's outside of it all, watching it. There's a part of me screaming, "This isn't a big deal! Get it together!" But I can't hear her. In that moment, I feel like I am in fight or flight, but the threat is me. How do you run from yourself?<br /><br />With a quick glance or in the right light, I still seem like myself. I still make wry jokes and plan to meet with friends. I still smile. I still love and enjoy both of my children.<br /><br />But like a copy of a copy of a copy, if you look closer, the picture isn't quite right. I'm not quite me. The edges break down and the lines start to blur.<br /><br />That's what postpartum anxiety feels like to me. I can feel like everything is okay, like I can go about life without any problems. But I have nothing left in reserves. Nothing. There is no place to draw from for patience or calm or perspective in the face of even the smallest setback. A single bump in the road and I'm sputtering to a grinding, smoking halt.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pnwuvTFNKZo/V6q-jImK6OI/AAAAAAAAElc/582DO4ltIcM4Hzrmywfpq7GsfZbao2CBgCLcB/s1600/3272942443_b542c82b36_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pnwuvTFNKZo/V6q-jImK6OI/AAAAAAAAElc/582DO4ltIcM4Hzrmywfpq7GsfZbao2CBgCLcB/s320/3272942443_b542c82b36_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />And I live on bumpy roads. Life takes place on bumpy roads.<br /><br />I have the cognitive capacity to recognize it for what it is: some misfiring of nerves calibrated wrong by a particularly ugly cocktail of genetics and hormones. But knowing doesn't make it feel any easier. I keep peering out from behind that copy of a copy of a copy and growl in anger at all the things she's getting wrong, but I can't get in front of her. I can't take my rightful place in my own life. Every time she snaps at the rambunctious five-year-old who is just trying to adjust to life as a big sister. Every time she cries because the dishes are overflowing in the sink. Every time she gets a knot in her throat over everyday tasks like driving to the doctor. I know what the right moves are, but I can't make them in time.<br /><br />I hold out hope that she will fade, this copy, and I'll burst through with strong lines drawn--any day now. When the baby sleeps through the night, when I get back to work, when my daughter is back in school, when I can run a mile again, when I can lift 150 pounds again, when I lose the weight, when it's not so hot. . .<br /><br />When?<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuellar/15755611747/in/photolist-q1gCsp-maCd4s-BJbsmN-8U4FeL-kGtVPT-aNz2sc-g2xd73-6KQhfL-aGAtN-cnXwW5-oPv2gw-6UNXar-dAfmdE-9319Vz-7eENdo-98jk5z-b7WGjV-rhVybi-btn4m5-4H1HRL-oqHzr2-JDTy7-ktQCGw-psV9QW-qJ9YLh-oC6rMB-a4WaXR-52Y4Ti-4tGpMt-DCTBU2-77uLjq-badCci-duHYR4-dtY9kC-o7WYTH-7LH1gE-gQVXR-aCBUJD-qzJZS-5PTPNo-9XSawD-4mUB4H-3aFuhe-seqwr6-eePHJn-qbrw-qVywZU-5KmfN1-69uX2p-pnr2Cr">Jose Maria Cuellar</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jypsygen/3272942443/in/photolist-isG2-9NH9LR-88jr2T-oBfkAQ-9LPBnH-fUfXdX-oTt85M-9NvF6h-fUeute-fUeBqG-oTtadz-oBfwZu-9NvFDv-oBfmQy-5ZdFL8-fX77EJ-6v3Dwy-53eMc8-53eLPg-q4Y1K-bmDXUP-27zngN-dv3Er-dm4sD9-6cnC6Q-jzngwo-9zYY3D">jypseygen</a></span>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/08/a-copy-of-copy-of-copy-postpartum.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-6837872759536023451Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:20:00 +00002016-07-26T18:18:43.781-05:00individualism/collectivismpoliticsrhetoricvotingStarfish and Sequoias: Why Do You Vote?<div class="tr_bq">I've been having <i>a lot</i>&nbsp;of conversations about the election lately. I've fallen into the role of "liberal stand-in" for many of my libertarian-leaning friends with a penchant for debate, and I think I have a fairly broad swath of the electorate in my social media feeds and day-to-day life due to the wide swing of my life's path. A poor, small-town white girl with extremely conservative extended family getting a PhD, marrying outside her race, and living in a major urban center while teaching at a community college makes for a pretty politically eclectic collection of acquaintances.&nbsp;</div><br />One conversation that I've had a few different times lately involves people who are considering voting for third party candidates because they are so unimpressed with their options. My general response has been that you should vote for the person you believe best represents your political viewpoints, but now I'm not so sure I gave the right advice.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e5R2acURIVc/V5eoCBe2xvI/AAAAAAAAElA/tuTtrlzn_FQXpcBT7aCk29MDmlBArk7gwCLcB/s1600/5394493168_d33b438624_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e5R2acURIVc/V5eoCBe2xvI/AAAAAAAAElA/tuTtrlzn_FQXpcBT7aCk29MDmlBArk7gwCLcB/s320/5394493168_d33b438624_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />This isn't a political post in the sense that it is going to analyze the candidates and make a suggestion for whom you should cast a vote. What I'm interested in thinking through today is the purpose of voting and its place in a larger narrative of social responsibility.<br /><br />Voting is often called a "civic duty," and some believe it should be more than a right--<a href="http://www.idea.int/vt/compulsory_voting.cfm">it should be a requirement</a>. Undoubtedly, marginalized groups in the past have fought and died for the chance to participate, and there are still barriers placed today to keep many Americans from exercising this right (as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/virginia-mcauliffe-voting-rights-felons.html?_r=0">current fight for felons' voting rights marches on</a>). Whether voting should be mandatory or not is rooted in a question of what voting <i>is</i>. Is it a chance to put your individual voice into the larger machine and influence the final outcome? Are you (as "one person, one vote" suggests) simply shouting your wishes (no matter how self-serving or impulsive) into the void and then waiting to see what comes out on the other side? Or is it a collective act? Is your responsibility when you vote to make your individual wishes heard, or is it to weigh out the possible outcomes and choose based on the greater good?<br /><br />That question, to my ears, was at the heart of the differences between the speeches at the RNC and those at the DNC.<br /><div><br /></div>Perhaps one of the places that individualism came through most strongly in the RNC was during <a href="http://time.com/4417579/republican-convention-ivanka-trump-transcript/">Ivanka Trump's speech</a> when she shared this anecdote about her father:<br /><blockquote>And like him, we each had a responsibility to work, not just for ourselves but for the betterment of the world around us. Over the years, on too many occasions to count, I saw my father tear stories out of the newspaper about people whom he had never met, who were facing some injustice or hardship.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote>He’d write a note to his assistant, in a signature black felt tip pen, and request that the person be found and invited to Trump Tower to meet with him. <b>He would talk to them and then draw upon his extensive network to find them a job or get them a break. And they would leave his office, as people so often do after having been with Donald Trump, feeling that life could be great again.</b></blockquote>It's a feel-good moment, and it paints her father in a much more positive picture than he paints himself. Instead of being a cold, hard businessman who is only out for profit (an image that Trump seems to embrace even as it is used against him), it shows a man of compassion and charity, goodwill and kindness, a man who wants to help the common people around him.<br /><br />The problem I have with this kind of individualistic rhetoric is that it absolves us of responsibility for the systems in which we are complicit partners. When we focus on the individual's circumstances rather than the system from which that individual's circumstances grew, we are able to ignore the ways that we unfairly benefit from that same system.<br /><br />I was thinking about this recently when I saw <a href="http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/teen-who-biked-to-college-i-thank-god-every-day/402707308">the news story</a> about a homeless teen named Fred who was biking six hours to get to college. His story was a heartbreaking account of a hardworking individual who desperately wanted to better his life but needed a break. People were moved and donated to a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/successforfred">GoFundMe account</a> to the tune of $184,000.<br /><br />It's a truly amazing account of people coming together to help out this young man. From the police officers who found him sleeping in a tent and worked together to put him up in a motel to the strangers all around the country who pitched in a few bucks to make sure he would never have to live in that tent again, it's a reminder of what it means to come together and support each other.<br /><br />The problem with stories like these (and this is <i>not </i>meant to discount the kindness of those who gave or those who saw Fred and decided to reach out and help) is that they can serve as a distraction from bigger societal issues and their potential collective solutions.<br /><br />Surely you've heard the old story about the<a href="http://www.esc16.net/users/0020/FACES/Starfish%20Story.pdf"> man saving the starfish</a>&nbsp;so that they don't die when the tide recedes. The key point is at the end when he silences naysayers who say he won't make a difference because starfish will just keep washing ashore by responding, "It made a difference to that one."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kt1edZfQ6Vs/V5ensuUVG3I/AAAAAAAAEk8/c4bFgph1rzg2INzUh4MG5v3LlPxk2yNOwCLcB/s1600/8361059685_84eaab73e9_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kt1edZfQ6Vs/V5ensuUVG3I/AAAAAAAAEk8/c4bFgph1rzg2INzUh4MG5v3LlPxk2yNOwCLcB/s320/8361059685_84eaab73e9_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />And that's hard to argue against. Helping one person is important, especially when you are acting as an individual. Often, as individuals, helping one person is all you can ever hope to do. We can't, individually, fix the education loan system to make sure that Fred has funding. We can't fix whatever societal ills led him to be homeless in the first place. We can't handle those things because they are soul-crushingly huge. So instead we put $5 in a &nbsp;GoFundMe account. We toss that starfish back into the sea.<br /><br />But there's something a little darker going on beneath the surface of these actions. In the video of the news report, the reporter is careful to note that a bank is overseeing all of Fred's newfound riches to make sure he spends them in the "right" way. There's something paternalistic about being able to pat ourselves on the back for helping out while casually wink-winking one another with the secure knowledge that Fred wouldn't have been able to do it alone. It took our savior status to get him there. In some ways, our actions are as much about making ourselves feel good as they are about helping the individual before us.<br /><br />But what if the starfish aren't washing onto the shore because of the inevitable pull of the tides? What if the starfish are washing onto the shore because they're attracted to the lights of manmade condos dotting the beach (I know that's not actually the case; this is hypothetical)? If we're actually the <i>cause</i>&nbsp;of the starfish tragedy, is it really so great of us to go and throw individual starfish back into the sea? Wouldn't it be a lot better to find a collective solution like agreeing to turn off our lights during peak starfish time or replacing our bulbs with starfish-friendly glows?<br /><br />That action, though, would require collaboration, cooperation, and communication. It would be <i>hard</i>! We wouldn't be able to pat ourselves on the back individually as being more caring and compassionate than our neighbors because our neighbors would have to be in on the solution, too. It would have a lot bigger impact, but it would feel a lot smaller to us as individual agents in the drama. After all, what's changing a light bulb versus triumphantly tossing a starfish through the air?<br /><br />I'm not cynical enough to believe that people only help others because they want to feel good about themselves. I think that people (and I include myself among them; I've donated to those campaigns, I've given spare change, I've helped on a tiny, tiny level that made no collective difference and felt good while I did it) are genuinely motivated to make a difference where they can. When we see no collective solutions, all we're left with is individual options.<br /><br />Ivanka was tapping into that desperation when she told her father's story. She was painting him to be someone who would find solutions by plucking those who are suffering out of their pain and giving them opportunities for greatness.<br /><br />Hidden within that message, though, is another caveat. Only those who are deemed deserving get the help. If you don't seem like you're working hard enough through your struggle, if you've given up or are angry and not humble enough about your misfortunes, well, then, too bad.<br /><br />The Starfish Method never shifts the balance of power, so be wary when those in power advocate it. If it makes you feel better to donate to a down-on-my-luck GoFundMe, by all means, do it. But don't let anyone tell you that's the best we can do or that it erases our responsibility to think about how the systems around us are set up.<br /><br />The message at the DNC took a different tone.<br /><br />Consider how Cory Booker opened <a href="http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/07/dnc_2016_what_njs_booker_told_the_delegates.html">his speech</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Our founding documents were genius. But not because they were perfect. They were saddled with the imperfections and even the bigotry of the past. Native Americans were referred to as savages, black Americans were referred to as fractions of human beings, and women were not mentioned at all.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">But those facts and other ugly parts of our history don't detract from our nation's greatness. In fact, I believe we are an even greater nation, not because we started perfect, but because <b>every generation has successfully labored to make us a more perfect union</b>. Generations of heroic Americans have made America more inclusive, more expansive, and more just.</blockquote><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michelle-obama-dnc-speech-transcript_us_57977847e4b02d5d5ed2e148">Michelle Obama's speech </a>also contained a call to look at our collective future:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">And make no mistake about it, this November when we go to the polls, that is what we’re deciding, not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. No, <b>this election and every election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives</b>.</blockquote>Bernie Sanders, too, made <a href="http://time.com/4421574/democratic-convention-bernie-sanders-speech-transcript/">this kind of appeal</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>This election is about – and must be about – the needs of the American people and the kind of future we create for our children and grandchildren.</b>&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">This election is about ending the 40-year decline of our middle class the reality that 47 million men, women and children live in poverty. It is about understanding that if we do not transform our economy, our younger generation will likely have a lower standard of living then their parents.</blockquote><br />By calling upon problems like poverty, global warming, education, and health care, the DNC speakers pointed again and again to the individual starfish and said, "You're not making a difference!" But instead of saying that as a cynical prelude to, "so stop trying!" they offered a different solution, one full of hope and sustainable, meaningful change.<br /><br />The trade-off, though, is that we don't necessarily get to see it happen, and we don't necessarily get to pat our own backs about it. Instead, the change will be gradual. It is the future generation for whom we act.<br /><br />"Make America Great Again" is a nonsense slogan. America has never been "great" for everyone living within its borders. Gross violations of civil rights, slavery, an orchestrated genocide against Native Americans, and institutionalized racism, sexism, and discrimination against anyone who didn't fit the status quo of the era have more than dotted our historical trajectory; they've underpinned it.<br /><br />But we've chipped away at those violations. We've made incremental progress so that today's world is better than yesterday's. Cory Booker called upon that truth to make the logical conclusion: we benefitted from the right choices of those before us. Now it's our turn to do the same for those who will come after us.<br /><br />As Wendell Berry puts it in <a href="http://www.context.org/iclib/ic30/berry/">"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Invest in the millennium. <b>Plant sequoias.</b><br />Say that your main crop is the forest<br />that you did not plant,<br />that you will not live to harvest.<br />Say that the leaves are harvested<br />when they have rotted into the mold.<br />Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.<br /><br />Put your faith in the two inches of humus<br />that will build under the trees<br />every thousand years.</blockquote>If you plant a sequoia today, you will not live to see it full-grown. You are never planting it for yourself. At its most pessimistic, it is an act of futility. At its most optimistic, it is an act of immortality.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hy7YBntyvY8/V5enNsS5YFI/AAAAAAAAEk0/W2NQ1ktIupszypItOOzV42qa46y5NIRyACLcB/s1600/2945666637_89c4257e88_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hy7YBntyvY8/V5enNsS5YFI/AAAAAAAAEk0/W2NQ1ktIupszypItOOzV42qa46y5NIRyACLcB/s320/2945666637_89c4257e88_z.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />Today, I read <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/ashley-wool/f-your-conscience-vote-for-hillary/10154446048480087">this post</a> from Ashely Wool urging everyone to vote for Hillary Clinton because a Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster. In it, she writes this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Your conscience only belongs to you, but <b>your vote belongs to everyone</b>.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Your vote is not a style statement. It’s not how you express your individuality. It’s not something you do to show all your friends how you think the country should work. You don’t vote to prove a point. You don’t vote to paint yourself in a certain light. You don’t vote for the Facebook likes. <b>You don’t vote for you. You vote as a way to help give your entire country the best chance it can realistically have at this point in time.</b></blockquote>Later, she adds this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Let me say something else, too--if Donald Trump became president, it probably wouldn’t negatively impact my life very much. I am a heterosexual, cisgendered, upper-middle-class white woman with a college degree from a great school, gainful employment, no criminal record, and no student loan debt. In the eyes of Donald Trump, I am not the problem. <b>I am not refusing a Trump presidency to further my own interests</b>.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>I am refusing a Trump presidency on behalf of my friends and fellow Americans</b> who are gay, transgendered, black, Latino, and Muslim. I am refusing a Trump presidency on behalf of my friends and fellow Americans who can’t afford to go to college, or who are drowning in student loan debt. I am refusing a Trump presidency on behalf of people who are struggling to make ends meet, who do not have flexible or well-paying day jobs, or financially stable parents to fall back upon if they need to. I am refusing a Trump presidency on behalf of hardworking immigrants who need and deserve a streamlined process to citizenship, instead of being ridiculed and denied opportunity at every turn. I am refusing a Trump presidency on behalf of the millions of Americans who lives and livelihoods were saved by the Affordable Care Act.</blockquote>In many ways, Wool is likening third party voters to the starfish savers. They're voting for a candidate who cannot win the general election (not this year, at least) because it makes them feel better, because it best reflects their individual desire, but not because they have looked to the future.<br /><br />She's asking them, instead, to plant sequoias.<br /><br />There are moments in our lives when all we can do is save a starfish, but there are also moments when we can plant sequoias.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CRtmcyeu_uo/V5encSdq8wI/AAAAAAAAEk4/hDoWPNOrojcRT3cxgeM8DeHvIgx1eec-wCLcB/s1600/3721101625_38b56351fc_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CRtmcyeu_uo/V5encSdq8wI/AAAAAAAAEk4/hDoWPNOrojcRT3cxgeM8DeHvIgx1eec-wCLcB/s320/3721101625_38b56351fc_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />When you have a choice, plant sequoias.<br /><br />Images: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/masked-builder/5394493168/in/photolist-9dGbSU-2YFJat-4EUwnM-nEQd4m-kNx4TW-cDn9n3-kNv3C4-kNx59q-kNx5xw-kNx4Zs-kNv45r-kNvGuV-fjRpy8-kNv2Gg-kNv2zx-kNv3QD-kNv2rM-kNv2vp-3KW8as-jpUvD6-7DC17Q-8XgtCm-dethtu-8cM556-79rwfq-9khkLB-dVG3rM-kNx4sL-kNv3K8-52B9zN-bTTamP-kNvFPX-Ge5fEj-9xB4Za-bEYqDm-kNv48H-bEYpfw-bEYr8G-51V9eW-9yrg1w-a7fbTE-7CSddu-6cMK8E-gzYCHJ-qnAQqE-48qauF-64V59A-bEYqfL-bEYqYy-D2HFqm">Caleb Wagoner</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vintageowlboutique/8361059685/in/photolist-dESg1J-dJQBKt-8X8Bdt-9dfvov-8oUEvQ-99PoGQ-5dkjdQ-iwGaHW-8oRaq6-7L4sUd-9ikFCy-7KM93R-c3fNgd-4thVn4-e4sCSS-4vkn4q-8oR9ni-6Krdea-6qUHY9-dbFJHL-ftZkzj-78Lb4x-6L1Ns3-6iHSCy-4QM8wB-6ikpCE-9q5fAU-74kPMu-b47iRF-5YzHsq-7WGwUW-4Dek4i-bUn7nU-5LMqMr-3eWCU1-5oSnwc-6QbtAz-9UTxui-civ4bW-9UTy3k-546oQo-95M9NW-Nyb9h-rDuV8D-aqEUBq-pPNvgh-nWhRBQ-ct6R3-4T2EjH-hmRc2Q">Jenny Davies</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/samfelder/2945666637/in/photolist-5uij4P-4uPuHu-apZ96w-4qnVVt-4uPuKG-6MuJxV-6CCLt2-yiG6u-byHbhs-edNrg3-5y3Zz6-8GeEer-byGP1S-yiFZi-8Gf3xg-yiFWA-8GcTR4-8GeUhh-3S8jvw-f52Uk-6RneMG-8GeK9D-8Gd6XH-7hSgMp-8Gd5wv-8Gi8L9-6Rn9VA-bMBhfv-6Rn8wQ-8t13oB-8GbsQ8-8Gi2wd-yiG4M-8GeFaP-8Gc2ze-8fcrfJ-8GbjLB-8GeBT8-8GcS8v-8GbhDr-8GeqDj-8Gf8x4-ahCEhe-4BsLmy-8GeQf2-dxgB3Z-8t454u-6zzXMo-8GhFF1-8GhUhW">Sam Felder</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/iainjmitchell/3721101625/in/photolist-6EPBSz-6EPCzg-7cbSDH-36QKw6-nhNmrB-HQr9RH-6bRXBv-GNcQy9-8AU6ym-24qmEv-8TNuZB-6Deh8i-kfAxvB-aHGdZc-nLMXUi-6EPs8a-HtFYx7-fEQQqS-HtFYeb-aHGby6-eN18dc-5azwTL-6bRXBe-6bRXBB-6bW3EL-bWdExE-AQWuA-kmt1o-i7sPhW-6SkkNA-feFfnv-a6D6Wi-8pWrVE-qJwNKY-HtFYRJ-8n6mzX-8BbTDv-79QYHq-7crU8L-8pTf8P-4JMWfG-6EapUv-eJqDfF-TjStT-6Sgghp-5bCzyV-36QHxV-4JHGDp-FqXU85-Gmq5bH">Iain Mitchell</a>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/07/starfish-and-sequoias-why-do-you-vote.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-2884995330877185640Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:07:00 +00002016-07-20T12:07:31.866-05:00body imagebody policingfat-shaminggilmore girlshealthtelevisionFat Shaming in Gilmore Girls: What Progress Have We Made? I'm watching <i>Gilmore Girls </i>again. It's great background television to have on while I'm folding clothes and sweeping the floor and otherwise caught in a cycle of domestic chore-doing while on maternity leave.<br /><br />This is probably my fourth time through the series, and while I vaguely remember a few of the references from the time before this viewing, I'm definitely noticing the fat shaming that is peppered through the show with alarming frequency.<br /><br />I'm certainly not the first re-watcher to recoil at these painful barbs in a series I remember fondly and warmly. Courtney Mina takes the show to task for several fat shaming and more general body shaming moments in <a href="http://www.bustle.com/articles/152139-9-ways-i-hope-the-gilmore-girls-revival-is-more-body-positive-less-early-2000s">this post for Bust</a>. However, looking at the show through this lens might ruffle some feathers because the show has generally been seen as a positive display of body (though certainly not racial) diversity (see <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/via/gilmore-girls-tropes-strong-female-characters/">point number five in this article</a>&nbsp;and the <a href="https://www.theodysseyonline.com/gilmore-girls-incredibly-important">discussion of Sookie's character here</a>).<br /><br />Sookie, indeed, is a rare find in television: a plus-sized woman whose character development and primary function is never centered on her size. The show served as a launching pad for Melissa McCarthy's stardom, but many of the roles she would come to play afterwards still used her size as a punchline or at least a plot point. To see a plus-size body attached to a character who just <i>exists</i>&nbsp;is still refreshing fifteen years later.<br /><br />And while Sookie is definitely the most cited example of this positive treatment of fat bodies on the show, she's not alone. Babette and Miss Patty are both larger women who are never shamed for their body size.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J6I38lmP3bg" width="420"></iframe></div><br />What's more, all three of these women are given full, successful lives. They aren't turned into women who need to be pitied or wallflowers whose body size makes them shrink into the background, trying to hide from the world. Miss Patty, in particular, is a vivid character whose sexual escapades, bold personality, life in show business, and colorful clothing all scream "look at me" without falling into tried and true stereotypes about large bodies.<br /><br />Often, fat characters in television and film are shown as lonely, desperately seeking love, settling for a unfulfilling relationship, or going through a physical transformation (which includes losing weight) before finally getting to meet "the One." Miss Patty and her multiple marriages throws a monkey wrench into the idea that there is a "One" but also insists that she will not settle or expect less from her love life because of her size.<br /><br />Babette and Sookie are both in quirky but completely fulfilling marriages that demonstrate their partners to be worthy and loving. Babette's comments about turning the bedroom into a jungle to fulfill some of her and Maury's fantasies also tiptoes into the realm of a fat woman owning and displaying her sexuality proudly. Again, that wasn't just groundbreaking television in 2000; it would still be rare today.<br /><br />These large, plot- and character-driven moments are what I usually remember about the show. In my mind it is progressive, woman-centric, body positive, and fun. Perhaps that's why the body shaming that keeps creeping up keeps taking me by surprise. There have been some times where I gasped aloud at what my beloved Gilmores were saying. Here are some of the most egregious offenses:<br /><br /><ul><li><b>Rory and the Ballerina</b></li></ul><blockquote class="tr_bq">This particularly interaction has<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GilmoreGirls/comments/2w689c/rorys_mean_ballet_article_at_yale/"> a reddit thread</a> of discussion. In Season 4, Rory has an assignment for the <i>Yale Daily News</i>&nbsp;reviewing a ballet performance. She is pressured to make sure she doesn't hold back on her opinion, and she makes sure to give it all. While she does critique the actual performance, she also has choice words for the ballerina's appearance, including some discussion of the roll of fat around her bra strap. It's petty, cruel, and hard to watch. &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">When the ballerina confronts her, I'm inclined to agree with her anger.&nbsp;</blockquote><div><ul><li><b>Big Undies</b></li></ul><blockquote class="tr_bq">Luke and Lorelai go shopping in Season 6 and Lorelai comes back with someone else's bag by mistake. The misplaced bag contains some large pink panties and bunny slippers. When Lorelai holds them up she comments that they might be hiding from their owner because she would "hate to be wrapped around the woman who fits these."&nbsp;</blockquote></div><div><ul><li><b>Treadmills as Punishment</b></li></ul><blockquote class="tr_bq">A running gag on the show is that Rory and Lorelai loathe physical exertion and love junk food. Luke is constantly nagging Lorelai to eat something healthy, and the girls constantly make jokes about how little they exercise. &nbsp;</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UhRflv6SKzI/V4-uuWk4YVI/AAAAAAAAEkc/PrNqUDOJb1owfpSEvY_Y1IlJ99rXm73OgCLcB/s1600/tumblr_mn7tmrdaIP1qfgdsoo1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UhRflv6SKzI/V4-uuWk4YVI/AAAAAAAAEkc/PrNqUDOJb1owfpSEvY_Y1IlJ99rXm73OgCLcB/s320/tumblr_mn7tmrdaIP1qfgdsoo1_500.gif" width="320" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">This as a backdrop makes a snide remark from Lorelai's mother, Emily, even more abrasive. When she's getting staff to arrange chairs for a party, she comments "not that far! If people need that much room to move around, they should be on a treadmill not at a party." &nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The idea that people are only allowed in public spaces if they look thin coupled with the idea that exercise is only a remedy for fatness and not for health is particularly troubling.&nbsp;</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sVeEo_w98k/V4-u38EomYI/AAAAAAAAEkg/BUB0f3y1K_wUdSOxbiOxfsSrCdPfZHAIQCLcB/s1600/0686cef7880bd31dc6feaa641a8f41ca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sVeEo_w98k/V4-u38EomYI/AAAAAAAAEkg/BUB0f3y1K_wUdSOxbiOxfsSrCdPfZHAIQCLcB/s1600/0686cef7880bd31dc6feaa641a8f41ca.jpg" /></a></div></div><div><ul><li><b>Fat Thighs&nbsp;</b></li></ul><blockquote class="tr_bq">One subplot involves Paris' affair with much-older professor Asher Fleming. Rory never really approves of their fling, and she gets upset when she hears that Paris is probably only one of many of Asher's paramours. In a conversation with Asher, she gets a dig in at him about the other student she saw him checking out at a book signing by saying, "And the redhead has fat thighs!"&nbsp;</blockquote></div><div><ul><li><b>Shaming the Runner</b></li></ul><blockquote class="tr_bq">Paris and Rory room with a runner named Janet. Paris and Janet don't get along at all, and Paris is particularly cruel to Janet about her exercise routine (a necessary part of Janet's life since she is a college athlete with an athletic scholarship). At one point, Paris is making fun of Janet as she jogs away and then mumbles, "I hate that she's thin!"&nbsp;</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div>They're small moments in the show. They're not things that I think about once the show has ended, and they're definitely not the things I remember in retrospect, but they are frequent enough and mean enough that I think they're worthy of examination.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe it's just a sign that we really have made a lot of progress in this area. It stings now because we have a lot of social movements around fat acceptance, body positivity, and otherwise recognizing that body shaming is wrong. Perhaps my response to these barbs is like my response to seeing old cartoons use blackface for gags: a sign that once we know better, we do better.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>In a show that works so hard to dismantle stereotypes and to showcase feminist messages in other ways, these moments feel out of place, but they really weren't out of place for the time. It was common to use nameless fat people as easy jokes.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I think we're much less accepting of that kind of lazy writing now (just <a href="http://twodoulas.ca/2015/12/jessica-jones-and-my-quarter-pound-problem/">look</a> at <a href="http://jennytrout.com/?p=9857">the response</a> to one such scene in <i>Jessica Jones</i>). Does that mean that we are actually getting better at seeing beyond fat bodies as jokes and viewing these characters as full, dynamic, and worthy of respect? Or does it merely mean that we have learned to make our fat shaming a little more nuanced and subtle? I'm not sure, but I hope at the very least that the new episodes of <i>Gilmore Girls </i>(which I await anxiously and excitedly) do away with these kinds of cruel, unnecessary comments.&nbsp;</div>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/07/fat-shaming-in-gilmore-girls-what.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827968588643415787.post-6513611654247305325Fri, 15 Jul 2016 16:23:00 +00002016-07-15T11:27:13.911-05:00agonismgamesindividualism/collectivismphilosophyrhetoricsocial mediatechnologyThe Gamification of Everyday Life, Self Care, and Neoliberal Shortfallings: What Has Pokemon Go Done for You Lately?I have a confession: I kind of suck at maternity leave. My son is eight weeks old now, and this is officially the longest I have gone since I was 15 years old without working. I still have a little over a month before I am back to teaching, and I'm staring down those days with something like dread mixed with something like willful determination. It's like I am preparing to run a particularly grueling marathon course instead of spending a blissful month snuggling with my children and making precious memories. That means that on top of feeling overwhelmed by the task, I also have to feel guilty about feeling overwhelmed. After all, getting this much time off is a privilege that many parents are denied. And isn't this motherhood gig supposed to be the most important job of all? Does the fact that thinking of another month of all of this togetherness makes my throat tighten and my chest hurt mean I don't love my kids enough?<br /><br />But it's not really togetherness that's bothering me. In fact, it's quite the opposite, and I think that I'm starting to place that panic into a larger philosophical context.<br /><br />At some point (fairly early in the process), maternity leave started to feel like a giant self-care project. It's a time to "get your body back" and make home cooked meals, a time to "nest" by decorating the house, and it's a space for building perfect and unshakable familial bonds. <br /><br />Of course, maternity leave is not a vacation (as the <a href="http://www.glamour.com/story/stop-with-me-ternity-maternity-leave-is-anything-but-a-sabbatical">backlash to that awful "me-ternity" article</a> a few months ago <a href="http://yackler.ca/blog/2016/04/29/want-maternity-leave-without-kids-ok-heres-go/">made clear</a>). I think that's the part that is the hardest for me. This time "off" is time that is supposed to be spent hard at work on all of these projects of self-fulfillment, and some of these projects of self-fulfillment feel pretty hollow and, to be frank, like bullshit. It's within this personal context that I came to read <a href="http://thebaffler.com/blog/laurie-penny-self-care">Laurie Penny's "Life-Hacks of the Poor and Aimless."</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">*****</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Penny is trying to tease out some tension between neoliberal notions of self care as a numbing salve for the pain of late capitalism and the fact that (even if we are coming together and sticking it to The Man) we do actually need to take care of ourselves. Her essay is worth a read in its entirety, but I'm just pulling out an early foundational piece of it to build on here. Penny situates our culture's current obsession with self care (which she epitomizes through Instagram gurus who post pictures of themselves doing yoga on beaches and drinking kale smoothies) within political power structures:&nbsp;"There is an obvious political dimension to the claim that wellbeing, with the right attitude, can be produced spontaneously." It's a tried and true method to keep the masses complacent and compliant to convince them that their happiness (and thus also their misery) is of their own making.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The isolating ideology of wellness works against this sort of social change in two important ways. First, it persuades all us that if we are sick, sad, and exhausted, the problem isn’t one of economics. <b>There is no structural imbalance, according to this view—there is only individual maladaption, requiring an individual response. </b>The lexis of abuse and gas-lighting is appropriate here: if you are miserable or angry because your life is a constant struggle against privation or prejudice, the problem is always and only with you. Society is not mad, or messed up: you are.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Secondly, <b>it prevents us from even considering a broader, more collective reaction</b> to the crises of work, poverty, and injustice.</blockquote>Our narratives of self-care (buy this supplemental powder, join this gym, pay for this retreat) are deeply embedded in capitalist pursuits. They're embedded so deeply that even rejecting them often falls into the same system. Take, for example, <a href="http://www.niashanks.com/bullshit-health-fitness/">this post from Nia Shanks</a> that promises to be a "Bullshit Free" way of approaching health and fitness. She promises to do away with the gimmicks and expensive lies of supplements and magic fixes for body modification. If her minimalist approach speaks to you, you can buy her "Train to Be Awesome" guide or enroll in her "Fit Like a Girl Fat Loss Program." You can pay someone to tell you how to stop paying other people to tell you how to be the best version of yourself.<br /><br />I'm not even necessarily pointing that out to criticize Shanks (or the thousands like her who are using body positivity and self-love as buzzwords to generate profit). I'd even venture to guess that most of those people are sincere about their belief that we need to cast off the yoke of Big Fitness and Big Pharma and Big Diet in order to better pursue health. The fact that they enact that belief by creating books and programs they can package and sell might seem contradictory, but it is a symptom of just how embedded our notions of self-care as individual "projects" really are.<br /><br />Chris Maisano writes in his article <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/chicken-soup-for-the-neoliberal-soul/">"Chicken Soup for the Neoliberal Soul"</a> that&nbsp;"neoliberalism has radically transformed our sense of self. . . . the assault on working-class organizations and living standards has led many young adults to adopt a profoundly individualistic and therapeutic view of the world and their personal development." His conclusion is that&nbsp;"only through the creation of solidarities that rebuild confidence in our collective capacity to change the world that their grip can be broken." Meanwhile, all of these self-care project gurus are offering us "solitary bowls of chicken soup" for our damaged souls.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3D6wmgd5kY8/V4kNg7Mk2rI/AAAAAAAAEj8/DwOPXLfgLDUYRRl5GGG8g9eEgnsFysjTACLcB/s1600/15621988590_bc65d978da_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3D6wmgd5kY8/V4kNg7Mk2rI/AAAAAAAAEj8/DwOPXLfgLDUYRRl5GGG8g9eEgnsFysjTACLcB/s320/15621988590_bc65d978da_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Are we so conditioned by our capitalist overlords to see the world through an individualistic lens that we have lost the ability to see all of the other tortured chicken soup-gulping souls around us as potential allies and friends? Are we about to hit the peak of the "bowling alone" phenomenon? (And&nbsp;<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/04/go-bowling-alone-then-you-probably-prefer-trump/">did this pervasive loneliness cause the rise of Donald Trump?</a>) Will we soon just be tiny disconnected islands staring into our glowing screens while Amazon's robots deliver us groceries so that we never even have to leave our houses?<br /><br />(I know what you're thinking. <i>Hey! Didn't you say this was going to be about Pokemon in the title? Was this a trap?! </i>Hold on. I'm getting there.)<br /><br />In <a href="https://www.news.virginia.edu/content/rise-facebook-and-operating-system-our-lives">an interview with&nbsp;Siva Vaidhyanathan</a>, the merger of technology with this radically individual notion of self care brings up something that I find fascinating: we may be going full circle.<br /><br />Vaidhyanathan explains that the major tech companies (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple) are all competing to become the "operating systems of our lives." He goes on to say:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">It’s going to be a closed system, not an open system. . . . It’s actually about our bodies. The reason that watches and glasses and cars are important is that they lie on and carry human bodies. What we’re really seeing is the full embeddedness of human bodies and human motion in these data streams and the full connectivity of these data streams to the human body.</blockquote>He envisions a world in which every decision and action is embedded into this connected system and our choices are outsourced, ultimately determined by the companies that have partnered with these systems and the influence they have. He is concerned:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">We’re accepting short-term convenience, a rather trivial reward, and deferring long-term harms. <b>Those harms include a loss of autonomy, a loss of privacy</b> and perhaps even a loss of dignity at some point. ... Right now, what I am concerned about is the notion that we’re all plugging into these data streams and deciding to allow other companies to manage our decisions. We’re letting Facebook manage what we get to see and which friends we get to interact with.</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">******</div><br />I started this post by discussing the very grave concerns about a culture of too much individualism. The problem with this kind of individualism is that it blinds us to the social systems in which we exist and the responsibility we have to the other people with whom we are connected. This is why saying "Black Lives Matters" infuriates some people. They counter with "All Lives Matter" which <i>sounds</i>&nbsp;collective and inclusionary but is actually a way of saying "My Life Matters, Individually" and, by extension, "Your Life Only Matters Individually as Well." They are threatened by "Black Lives Matter" because it suggests a community of people who are coming together to insist that we examine the way systemic policies and collective actions are impacting them. Admitting that we need to focus on "Black Lives" instead of each individual life is admitting that we really aren't just individuals getting to determine our own success and failure, admitting that maybe our success wasn't entirely earned and that we did indeed benefit from systems of white supremacy or class privilege and on the other side that maybe someone else's struggle isn't just a sign of their individual weakness but a marker of the ways they have been systematically denied access to opportunity.<br /><br />That's a scary proposition for someone who has become fully invested in the individualistic notion of self care. Blending some expensive supplement powder into our kale smoothies is a lot easier than trying to dismantle a system of institutional inequality.<br /><br />But by the end of that line of thinking, I had gotten to someone who fears a complete <i>loss </i>of individuality, a world in which we make no decisions for ourselves and one in which giant corporations use out networked connection to turn us into consuming automatons whose choices are no longer our own.<br /><br />It's not that one of these fears is valid and the other isn't. We exist in a world where too much individualism and too much collectivism are both a threat. I think that we're quickly approaching a very kairotic moment where these two are going to overlap: the absolute individual with the absolute collective. And I think that a clear place to see the struggle that overlap causes (and its potential) is in the gamification of everyday life.<br /><br />There is a lot of gamification in my everyday tasks. Walking has become gamified through Fitbit and Pokemon Go. Shopping has become gamified through Target's Cartwheel app. I can earn badges for listening to books on Audible.<br /><br />Each of these instances represents a place where the individual and the collective are crashing into one another. Tracking how many steps I take in a day on a Fitbit is a wholly individual endeavor. Earning badges for the most steps I have ever taken in a day or the distance I have traveled in the time I have been using the device is an individual accomplishment. But using a Fitbit without using the collective features isn't much fun. The way that it encourages people to move more is through collective competition and encouragement.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gV3HXQVva3Y/V4kNBzE8eCI/AAAAAAAAEj4/5Xc9ud_4ahkV9rF_JNzX38q-4GIet8HjACLcB/s1600/26883640286_0d58ea4c05_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gV3HXQVva3Y/V4kNBzE8eCI/AAAAAAAAEj4/5Xc9ud_4ahkV9rF_JNzX38q-4GIet8HjACLcB/s320/26883640286_0d58ea4c05_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Pokemon Go has gotten a lot of criticism for further entrenching us into an individualistic mindset. It can be jarring to see a bunch of people wandering around with their faces buried in a screen. It's a good visual metaphor for the biggest fears of individualism: we will be so consumed by our own concerns that we won't even recognize there is a world around us.<br /><br />But that's not what's actually happening. Pokemon Go has quickly become one of the most popular apps of all time, and with that many people playing simultaneously, we have the chance to see what this crash between individual and collective through technology can really look like.<br /><br />And what does it look like? Kind of a beautiful mess.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XsgGl7NL3cU/V4kNzogm27I/AAAAAAAAEkA/GXvS1EQAkjsB5e-Jwk0Q0Kp9nPR0PwLrwCLcB/s1600/8761135424_0c9444167e_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XsgGl7NL3cU/V4kNzogm27I/AAAAAAAAEkA/GXvS1EQAkjsB5e-Jwk0Q0Kp9nPR0PwLrwCLcB/s320/8761135424_0c9444167e_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />It has been used to promote messages of love and equality by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pokemon-go-westboro-baptist-church_us_5783cae3e4b01edea78ecd87">targeting the hateful Westboro Baptist Church</a>, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-gos-latest-achievement-helping-sell-pizza/1100-6441768/">sell more pizzas</a>, give <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2016/07/09/how-pokemon-go-can-lure-more-customers-to-your-local-business/#395137f57fe4">small businesses a chance to up their foot traffic</a>, and <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12192666/pokemon-go-hillary-clinton-campaign">register voters</a>.<br /><br />It has connected random people together on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/nyregion/pokemon-players-take-their-hunt-to-the-streets-of-new-york.html?_r=0">the streets of New York</a>&nbsp;and given <a href="https://i.redd.it/ps0tfvtlwx8x.jpg">autistic children a way to connect more easily</a>.<br /><br />Animal shelters are using it to <a href="http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2016/07/13/muncie-animal-shelters-pokemon-go-dog-walks-breaking-internet/87016448/">get people to help walk dogs</a>,&nbsp;and police are <a href="https://twitter.com/FallRiverPD/status/752234499677839360/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">using it to connect to the communities they patrol</a>.<br /><br />Not all of the stories have been positive, of course. There have been reports of people <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/07/10/four-suspects-arrested-string-pokemon-go-related-armed-robberies/86922474/">using the game to plan robberies</a>, and <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/12/485759308/holocaust-museum-arlington-national-cemetery-plead-no-pokemon">some of the sites marked as Pokestops</a> are not happy with the designation and the crowds it has brought to otherwise solemn places. <br /><br />But the one thing that all of the stories have in common is that the interaction between individual and collective is highlighted through the games. People are talking to each other face-to-face because of the game when they get out of their houses and bump into one another (perhaps literally, as we forget to look up from our screens). People are putting Pokemon "lures" on places like children's hospitals in acts of goodwill. We're finding local businesses and landmarks we may have never seen before. (I've personally found three murals I didn't know existed in my own neighborhood thanks to the game.)<br /><br />All of this to say, there is enough of both individualism and communalism to go around. We do not need to be so lulled by the promise of individualism in the face of seemingly insurmountable social ills that we forget other people exist. Nor do we need to become so enmeshed in the collective that we lose individual autonomy and let corporations choose our lifestyles for us. There is another option, and it's not so much a "middle ground" as it is a constant push and pull between the extremes that will overlap just as Pokemon Go has done.<br /><br />We've been presented with a dichotomy of individualism and collective as if we must constantly be on a trajectory inevitably ending with complete submission to one or the other, but that is overly simplistic and ignores the collisions between those extremes.<br /><br />It's in these collisions that we have the chance to escape the dystopian outcomes of either. And it makes me feel optimistic that some of the collisions can be pretty fun.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyww/15621988590/in/photolist-pNsLWS-6Xc1k-3bae6i-7DRDsY-8oreFW-4hQZom-8uNKqW-7pzEF2-beWSvF-9umwWz-d4uXXG-asvhPG-8Egitb-qpVCRh-5S59tL-bjEE4U-7V6aD5-uyLGg-7Fxohc-3beJ4C-7TV6kW-s2RpR-2gdGVC-7LGyDo-5DXcDN-2zuCv7-mfZcE-brt7a2-brt6qk-fYmZ4N-82unJP-eN5Qja-brt6SD-8Cvhu5-8eweiE-4HpNft-brt6Aa-83k2xy-dYrcL7-pPbqqk-6734P8-5MKHAY-skZJX-78rCUi-9aAxzx-7VGuLP-zuBDa-4jizeH-jeFUVd-bWo9vq">Jeffreyw</a>, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/orchidwhite/8761135424/in/photolist-emc7k3-8TRgb3-rvgg5n-bkfTAw-7XNkkM-5yZr2L-dkyPaj-F18mAD-ERWjg4-621eTR-nEGo9Y-aKkef-rnfypi-6EzufT-8Gxbyw-9Xz4WT-3TxRuJ-eQ2YEc-rx2dbW-6GzoK7-yQkKd-npBfVH-9boHB6-rx8zXD-rx2dML-f1DHwq-5EVBM9-9yc35q-4rCMkZ-gxirwz-8ZSStk-5W5zZo-cNVgTQ-61Abyn-afMPSU-dLHeLy-6XYxuc-9XBXJh-5pL8B8-6maiLB-7QWX49-dFSJzJ-7xdFmJ-9sCYkS-8WXNvN-8BbK8U-kKQD3B-9JFUcH-8BbKa3-8B8Cie">charliepatrick</a></span>http://www.balancingjane.com/2016/07/the-gamification-of-everyday-life-self.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Michelle Parrinello-Cason)0